COVID-19 Policy

These additional health and safety precautions are in place to acknowledge potential exposure, mitigate risks, and promote safety for our entire community while on campus. We will continue to monitor our policy against our vaccination data, as well as data on community transmission, and adjust our protocols if necessary.

• Adhere to school, local, state, and federal recommendations and health guidelines as it relates to health and safety precautions.
• Masks are optional for students, employees, and visitors.
• Continue to implement cleaning protocols, including proper hygiene, handwashing/sanitizing stations, tissues and paper towels, disinfectant wipes or spray, and gloves.
• Campus signage on preventing illness and current health and safety precautions.
• Each campus has two health facilities: one for isolation of suspected COVID-19 patients and one for daily health room operations.
• Follow CDC and NCDHHS protocol regarding notification and contact tracing in the instance of a confirmed positive for COVID-19.

Country Day adheres to local and state government policies in regard to communicable diseases. We also follow national recommendations from the CDC for the basis of this policy. As stated by the latest information in the Tool Kit, the impact of individual contact tracing on transmission during this stage of the pandemic may be limited in school settings. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has made changes to its COVID-19 guidelines in schools stating individual contact tracing and exclusion from school of asymptomatic people after an identified exposure (regardless of location of exposure) is no longer recommended, effective February 21, 2022.

Students and employees who are symptomatic or have tested positive should stay home, call the nurses (Cannon: 704-943-4568/4569 or Bissell 704-943-4830), and see their health care provider.

Symptoms include:

• Fever or chills
• Persistent cough
• Difficulty breathing
• Shortness of breath
• Fatigue
• Muscle or body aches
• Headache
• New loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Nausea or vomiting
• Diarrhea

Individuals will not be able to return to campus until the appropriate quarantine period has passed or an alternate diagnosis for the symptoms is provided by their health care provider. 

Symptoms of Illness During the School Day

• If a student or employee displays any symptoms of illness during the school day, they should immediately be sent to the designated health center for Nurse assessment. (Lower School students must be escorted by a teacher, Middle School and Upper School students may come unaccompanied if not in respiratory distress).
• If prudent, the Nurse will send the employee or student to an isolation area and then home as quickly as possible. 
• The Nurse will notify the employee/student’s parent/guardian of the next steps to take. Exposure notification and tracing is guided by local, state, and nationwide policy per the NCDHHS G.S. 130A-136 and requirements outlined in COVID-19 Clusters in Occupational, Educational, and Community Settings. In partnership with Atrium Healthcare, the Nurse will facilitate exposure notification and safety measures.

If a student or employee has been sent home from the health room with symptoms that are consistent with suspected COVID-19 infection, the Nurse will notify their division head and provide updates as necessary. The school will maintain appropriate privacy practice and confidentiality measures throughout the process.

More Details Regarding Notification and Contact Tracing

 

• Potential exposure will still be notified by the Nurses, and the COVID-19 Dashboard will continue to be updated regularly.
• BUT students or employees do not have to stay home after an exposure.
• After an exposure, mask-wearing for 10 days is recommended.
• Students, employees, and visitors should NOT come to campus if you have tested positive for COVID-19 or have symptoms.
• You only have to communicate to the school if you become symptomatic or test positive (nurses@charlottecountryday.org).
• The school's Contact Tracing Team is made up of school administrators, school nurses, and Atrium Health professionals.

Our best risk-mitigation tool is staying home with symptoms. While exposure management precautions such as masking and quarantine requirements are being scaled back based on the guidance of the health department, we want to emphasize that it is more important than ever to stay home and call your doctor at the onset of any new symptoms.

Questions

Feel free to reach out to any of the nurses with questions or concerns:
—Cannon Campus: Gwen Nix liz.grasty@charlottecountryday.org, (704) 943-4568/4569
—Bissell Campus: Wendy Barber wendy.barber@charlottecountryday.org, (704) 943-4830

In order to successfully mitigate the risk for spreading COVID-19 among our Country Day community, it is important that parents, students, employees, and all household members adhere to the CDC and NCDHHS guidelines for reducing the spread of this virus both on and off campus. Parents and employees are asked to sign a Compliance Pledge (accessed via Magnus).

All students, employees, and campus visitors must not come to campus with symptoms or after testing positive with COVID-19 without direct consent from the Nurses. When in doubt, please call the Nurses. Staying home is our number one risk mitigation tool.

The nurse, employee, parent/guardian, and individual HCP will work together to understand individual circumstances and necessity for COVID-19 testing, quarantine, or isolation.

As a standard, the school follows the contact tracing protocols of the CDC along with guidance from our Atrium Healthcare partners.

Country Day benefits from a long-standing partnership with the Johnson Group to execute the high level of cleaning and sanitization necessary at all times for our school, but especially right now. With their help, we can take extra precautions when it comes to infection control. As a our janitorial, facility services, and disinfection provider, the Johnson Group has the staff and experience to disinfect our facilities efficiently and safely. Plus, they know which tools and products are most effective at killing pathogens and preventing their spread.

• The school has several misting, fogging, and electro-static machines at our disposal. 
• Increased cleaning and disinfecting of high-touch surfaces throughout the campuses.
• Increased education and protocols for employees to perform routine sanitizing of desks and materials in their areas of use (classrooms) throughout the day unless extenuating circumstances exist. Cleaning materials will be supplied by the school. 

Cleaning Protocol

• On a daily basis, our custodial partners cleans with two primary products manufactured by Diversey, Inc:
  1) Virex II 256, a hospital grade disinfectant listed on the EPA/CDC website for COVID-19;
  2) Alpha-HP, a hydrogen peroxide based cleaner, listed as Phato 1:64 on the CDC website with the same EPA registration number as Alpha HP of 70627-62.
• Alpha HP is primarily used during the day, since hydrogen peroxide poses less risk if one of the day porters had just wiped down a touch point and someone touches behind them.
• Virex is typically used by the evening crew and is a little harsher disinfectant.

Safety Data Sheets

• Virex 256
• Alpha-HP
• BioShield