Three days into a new academic year, the Cobb County School District has gotten more specific about its quarantine policy.
Before classes resumed on Monday, the original guidance released July 20 required quarantine for “any student or staff member who is identified as a close contact” according to Centers for Disease Control and Cobb and Douglas Public Health guidelines.
Those individuals were to receive a “close contact” letter outlining further instructions.
The new policy, released by the district with little further explanation, says the following:
“Students or staff who are identified as a close contact and are asymptomatic are able to return to class or work the next day if the student or staff member remains asymptomatic and wears a mask while on school district property for ten days after exposure. Students or staff who are identified as a close contact and are symptomatic must follow directions contained in the close contact letter.”
The new guidance issued Wednesday continues the Cobb school district’s masks-optional policy for staff and students outside of quarantine provisions, but said that mask use is “strongly encouraged.”
The changes also come a week after the CDC issued new guidance regarding indoor mask use in general, and “recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status.”
Cobb is one of the few school districts in metro Atlanta, along with Marietta City Schools, that does not have a mask mandate.
The transmission of COVID-19 in Cobb County in recent days has surpassed the “high community threshold,” a 14 day average of 100 cases per 100,000 people. That figure is now more than 300, and late last week Cobb and Douglas Public Health director Dr. Janet Memark urged citizens to mask in public and get vaccinated.
The new Cobb policy also limits volunteers on school campuses, and parents and guardians are not allowed to eat lunch in the cafeteria with their children, topics not included in the initial guidelines:
“Non-staff volunteers will be limited in their ability to enter the school and volunteer in roles that involve any degree of proximity to students during the instructional day. At the discretion of the principal, volunteers are allowed to enter the school and work in an isolated location away from students and staff. Volunteers are still welcome on campus for afterschool activities and special school events. Additionally, and until further notice, no parents/guardians will be permitted to eat lunch with their child in the school cafeteria.”
The Cobb school district said as it did last year, it will post weekly updates of COVID-19 cases every Friday at this link.
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- Cobb schools release public health protocols for 2021-22
- KSU student announces run for Cobb school board
- Cobb schools SPLOST referendum called; Walton Robotics Lab approved
- Cobb schools financial watchdogs “all about sharing facts”
- On 2nd vote, Cobb school board adopts FY ’21 budget
- Special review of Cobb school district slated for August
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Maybe if we call the Delta variant Critical Race Theory, the anti-maskers won’t want children to get it in school.
Can’t wait to see what happens when the vaccines are approved (including approved use for children) and added to the list of immunization requirements that already exist for to attend Cobb schools.
https://www.cobbanddouglaspublichealth.com/services/child-health-services/immunizations-school-requirements/
What will the ‘freedom loving’ parents say at that point? You caved already by those vax requirements being forced on you if you’re sending your kid to a Cobb county school. Do you disagree with those requirements?
Let the people who are scared wear their masks and the people who aren’t can live like free people.
Get real. Responsible mask wearing is not an attack on your “freedom.”
You seek to force others to do what you yourself freely chose and don’t see how you’re the bad guy in this scenario. The lack of peoples’ self awareness these days is astounding.
Lack of self awareness?
The reason this pandemic is such a problems is because of people like you who refuse to admit the real danger all of us are in. You think that pretending it is not real will keep you safe. But you go on, keep thinking your actions have no effect on others. Sounds like you are the one who has no self-awareness.
Nice ad hominem attack there. I never said that COVID isn’t real. What I am saying is that it isn’t worth turning our lives upside down. You choose to live in fear and that’s fine. All I am saying is that you shouldn’t put your fears onto other people.
Much like Gov. DeSantis, the Cobb school board has backed themselves into a corner. They are too afraid of looking weak to the nutcases who can’t accept election results. They need to require masks now.