Healthy in Hopkins

Symptoms of COVID-19:
The person in your household who has these symptoms should not attend school.

In most cases, a negative COVID-19 test will be needed for the persons with symptoms before a return to school.  A positive test with a doctor’s note identifying another form of illness or condition such as an allergy will allow return to school. Otherwise the sick person will need to self isolate for 10 days or until symptoms go away (whichever occurs last). Please see Decision Tree below for more details.

The Daily Screening Tool can help you walk through this health check. Those who become ill during the day must report to the school health office, be isolated, and evaluated. They will either go home or return to class after assessment.

Exclusion Criteria
We will continue to have students and staff with 1 Major and/or 2 Minor symptoms excluded from school until a negative test result OR alternative diagnosis is received.

• Masking on school buses is required for all people ages 2 years and older regardless of vaccination status — this is a federal requirement.

• Masking is required indoors for all K-12+ students, all staff, and all visitors regardless of vaccination status.

• Masking for students 2 years of age through preschool is strongly recommended but not required in classrooms.

• Masking is not required when working alone in offices, classrooms, vehicles, or job locations that have no person-to-person interaction.

• Masks are required for all in-person indoor meetings of two or more people regardless of setting.

• Masks are not required outdoors. 

• Masking requirements are subject to change given new CDC guidance and/or MDH guidance.

• We will continue to follow guidance from the MDH Decision Tree for Schools; however, we will no longer send home all non-symptomatic family members when someone in the home has potential COVID-19 symptoms.
   
• Isolation is required for at least 10 days for all positive cases. All positive cases will be reported to MDH, as required by regulation.
   
• Close contacts will be identified and notified regarding their need to quarantine.
   
• Quarantine protocol is not necessary for anyone who is fully vaccinated and remains symptom free; however, the district may require additional mitigation measures be taken.
   
• The student quarantine protocol is not necessary if there is a confirmed, positive case in an indoor classroom setting as long as the positive case individual and close contacts were both correctly wearing masks, and the exposed person remains symptom free.
   
• Length of quarantine, when needed, for a close contact to a positive case remains consistent with the length of times that were in place at the close of last school year:

1. Students: 10 days
2. Staff members: 7 days with negative Molecular/PCR test, otherwise 10 days
3. 14 days for any household close contact situations

Because vaccines are the strongest tool in our toolkit to end COVID-19, we respectfully encourage all families to get eligible family members vaccinated.

The Pfizer vaccine has been authorized to vaccinate youth ages 5 and up. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are only available for 18 and older at this time.

Learn more about how to access free vaccinations or to to the CDC’s Vaccine Finder to schedule an appointment for a vaccine at a pharmacy near you or sign up on Minnesota’s COVID Vaccine Connector to receive more information about vaccine opportunities.

Getting eligible family members and scholars vaccinated will help give the members of our community the best chance to learn in-person, participate in sports and activities, and attend school sponsored events.  It also avoids the need to quarantine after travel within the US and lowers the likelihood of transmitting COVID-19 without symptoms.  Now that the UK Variant is dominant in the state, this is a bigger problem. Vaccination of 80% of the state and nation also drastically lowers the ability of COVID-19 to mutate or change in a way that makes it vaccine resistant.

• Free, in-home testing remains available; please see this website.
• For equity reasons, students may not test out of a 10-day, 14-day, or 24-day quarantine.
• Fully vaccinated adults who become close contacts may be asked to seek testing.
• We will only accept state approved testing via molecular/PCR tests and saliva tests for shortened quarantine for staff.