Zion Elementary District 6 is working closely with
Lake County Health Departments, Illinois Department of Public Health, and ISBE to monitor COVID-19 cases in our area. We are collaborating with medical officials, business leaders, teachers, school administrators, and families to help guide our decision making around protocols and guidelines to ensure the safety of our entire district.
It is imperative that we educate our learners, staff, and community about health and safety measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 within our schools.
Sanitation, Cleaning, and Disinfection
Zion District 6 partners with RJB for cleaning services. District 6 and RJB requires that all employees wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE.)
RJB has increased the amount of staff dedicated to cleaning our school buildings, which also included a dedicated Day Porter to each location.
Day porters keep the facility clean and sanitized but, most importantly they provide visibility to staff, students, or visitors ensuring that the space that they are in is clean and disinfected.
Continuous cleaning and sanitizing of high touchpoints throughout the day. For example: tables, door handles, light switches, water fountains, countertops, restrooms fixtures, handrails, coffee machines, etc.
Frequent disinfecting multiple times daily of communal areas as they get used.
Replenishment of supplies. For example: soap, paper towels, and hand sanitizers.
Distribution of hand sanitizers.
In addition to your nightly custodial staff, a Day Porter can help in round-the-clock cleaning and disinfection of our facility.
All schools will be cleaned multiple times daily, focusing on major touch entry points in common areas such as lockers, doorknobs, handles, stairwell railings, light switches and soap dispensers. Bathrooms will be frequently cleaned to accommodate increased traffic patterns.
Custodial staff will disinfect using ECAS, or Electrochemically Active Solutions, with microfiber cloths to spray and wipe down objects and surfaces.
In addition to traditional sprayers and foggers RJB is exploring further ways to effectively and efficiently clean and disinfect our buildings.
Scheduling and Routine: Throughout the workday, the custodial staff will implement a routine of surface cleaning in the major touch point areas discussed such as restrooms. The staff will, in some cases, report at staggered times depending upon hours of operation to ensure consistent disinfection practices while primary building employees are present. Later custodial shifts will apply the full standard cleaning of all areas to be ready for the next day. Additional disinfecting will be performed prior to the arrival of district staff in high-traffic areas such as the front office. Custodial staff will wear face masks and gloves.
Nurses Office and Isolation Room
Our district is committed to assigning full-time RN’s for each school and one district-wide registered nurse to help create a safe and healthy environment. Students exhibiting possible COVID-19 symptoms will be isolated from others within the nurses office until picked up by their parent/guardian. The building nurse will assess other students outside of the nurses office or in the classroom and provide appropriate care. After the isolated student is picked up, the nurses office will be sanitized accordingly.
Covid-19 Positive Case Confirmation
Upon notification of a positive result, a parent or employee will notify their principal or supervisor, respectively. The principal or supervisor will notify the regional superintendent or assistant superintendent/chief, who will notify the district nurse. Upon receipt, the district nurse will communicate details with the health department.
Positive individuals must quarantine for 10 days from onset of symptoms, or 10 days from positive test date if they are asymptomatic.
If your student OR any of your household members are symptomatic with any of the below symptoms, they must stay home and either get a negative COVID-19 test result or a doctor’s note to return, regardless of vaccination status. Only the symptomatic person is required to get tested.
Covid Symptoms Are as Follows:
Fever over 100.4
Cough
Shortness of Breath
New Loss of Taste or Smell
Body Aches
Sore Throat
Vomiting
If you have COVID-19 symptoms:
If these symptoms can’t be ruled out as something else, or are not a normal side effect of a medication or chronic condition, please stay home and either seek physicians’ guidance, get a Covid test, or quarantine for 10 days.
Parents/guardians should contact the school office to report your child absence.
Parents should contact the School Nurse to report any COVID-19 symptoms or results.
If you test positive for COVID-19:
Quarantine must be completed for 10 days.
Contact HR ASAP and report your illness to the Company Nurse.
Please observe social distancing in the home, wear a mask when appropriate, wash hands very frequently, cover cough and sneeze with a tissue, and isolate as much as possible. This guidance comes directly from the Lake County Health Department.
If you have any questions please talk to your school’s nurse or contact the District Lead Nurse, Natalee Murray BSN RN.
Covid-19 Positive Cleaning Protocol
Deep cleaning: If a positive COVID-19 case is determined within a school or building, district staff will use an approved chemical and electrostatic machine to disinfect any area deemed appropriate by contract tracing processes. The sanitization solution is OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), WHMIS (Workplace hazardous Materials Information System) and GHS (Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals) compliant.
Teachers and students must work together with custodial staff to promote a clean and healthy environment for everyone within each building.
Each classroom will have additional sanitation stations that will include gloves and disinfectant wipes.
Students and teachers shall wipe down any community or high-touch areas after each class to reduce exposure for the next classroom.
School closures: School closures due to cleaning or positive cases will be determined on a school by school basis and appropriate protocols with be followed.
NOTE: ISBE and IDPH does NOT require a complete school closure due to a positive COVID-19 test.
Covid-19 Positive Case Notification
District 6 is dedicated to alerting our community about current COVID-19 information. This information will be shared as follows:
Any/all exposed parties notified based upon contact tracing.
Families and staff will be asked to report possible cases to school to initiate contact tracing.
All known positive cases will be reported to the Lake County Health Department.
Emergency notifications will be sent through School Messenger.
Website and social media to be updated with any new information.
Contact d6info@zion6.org if you are uncertain who to contact or have questions.
Staff engage in weekly surveillance COVID-19 testing via BinaxNOW. BinaxNOW COVID-19 testing is available for symptomatic children
if consent from parent is on file.
The district and registered nurses working for the district are NOT administering the COVID-19 vaccine to any staff or students. The district has partnered with Walgreens and LCHD to provide separate vaccination events to staff, students, and families.
Contact Tracing
Zion District 6 is collaborating with the Illinois Department of Health to conduct contact tracing.
Upon notification of a positive case on campus, the district nurse will also communicate with administration to track movement of the person who tested positive and secure affected areas. Impacted individuals will be notified.
Quarantine/Isolation Procedures
Quarantine is necessary to keep someone who might have been exposed to COVID away from others.
ISBE and IDPH mandate any individual in close contact with someone testing positive for COVID-19 must self-quarantine for 10 days.
ISBE & IDPH define ‘close contact’ as “any individual who has been closer than 3 feet for more than 15 minutes without PPE (Hallway transitions and lunch are excluded.)
If someone is a close contact to a COVID-19 positive person at school while masked, they must quarantine for 10 days from last exposure IF they are unvaccinated, unless they have consent to do screening testing with the nurse on Day 1, 3, 5 & 7 if they remain asymptomatic.
If the contact comes from within the household they still must quarantine.
Vaccinated individuals do not need to quarantine if they are a close contact.
Return To Campus: At least 10 days have passed since symptoms appeared; at least 24 hours fever-free without using fever-reducing medication, and all other symptoms have subsided.
