Out of concern for the health and safety of our students and staff, along with a key goal of maintaining in-person learning, please:
Take responsibility for keeping yourself, your child(ren), and others as healthy as possible.
If your child is showing COVID symptoms, do not send her/him to school. Return to school after:
a. isolating for 10 days and returning after the symptoms are gone, OR
b. receiving a note from a physician explaining it is an alternative illness/ailment, OR
c. obtaining a negative COVID test.
(PCR tests are effective. Per the local health department, home test kits are for awareness only and should not be accepted as proof of a negative test.)
If your child has been exposed to COVID, particularly within the household, consider quarantining for 10 to 14 days. If close-contact quarantining is not a chosen practice, watch carefully for symptoms and consider the use of a mask at Arrowhead for at least the 14-day COVID incubation period to prevent potential disease spread to peers and staff members.
During these first couple weeks of the school year, Arrowhead has had 36 confirmed positive cases of COVID in students and 8 more in staff members. Last week, we averaged 160 students called in sick each day (COVID, and certainly other illnesses, as well.) Approximately 500 students have been close contacts of one or more of those confirmed positive cases, with 15 close contacts ending up positive with COVID. As a comparison, last school year by September 17 Arrowhead had 8 confirmed positive cases in students, and no confirmed positive staff members. During all of last school year there were 270+ students confirmed positive with COVID. Of approximately 2,800 close contacts during the school year, 36 of them ended up positive with COVID with about 6 likely linked to spread at school.
Whether the increased cases this school year is due to masks being optional, or the Delta COVID variant being far more contagious, or other reasons … we simply don't know, nor does the Waukesha County Public Health Department have any definitive answers for us. In consultation with that local health department leadership, they shared these peer-reviewed studies regarding COVID spread in schools last year. The health department director also stressed that COVID transmission occurs more frequently among unvaccinated people than the vaccinated, and unvaccinated people tend to become more sick than the vaccinated.
The Arrowhead School Board holds the responsibility of making the rules regarding our COVID mitigation strategies. Currently, masks, close-contact quarantines, vaccinations, and physical distancing remain optional. Our superintendent provides school board members weekly COVID data updates. Also, the COVID 19 Communication webpage, reporting confirmed positive case numbers, is updated at least once per week. It is important to understand that actual cases of COVID may be more prevalent than what is noted on that webpage because students and staff members may be choosing to not get tested when ill; only confirmed (with a COVID test and reported to school) are shown on the webpage.
In terms of procedures, the school board would hold a meeting to discuss any potential changes to our COVID-related plans, if/when necessary. Further, in an emergency situation of a quick, widespread illness outbreak (in consultation with the local health department), or if faculty absenteeism levels prevent in-person learning, the superintendent (or the state health department) has the legal authority to close school. This never had to happen last school year at Arrowhead, so let's hope for the same this school year! If a closing must occur at some point in the future, temporary virtual learning would be implemented until the student population could return to campus.
Let's be One Team to 'stay safe to stay open' here at Arrowhead High School!
