CommunityGMA

Actions

Health officials urge parents to start preparing kids for upcoming school year

KitchenCops
Posted at 3:33 AM, Aug 13, 2020
and last updated 2020-08-13 09:42:36-04

Parents have their guard up as more kids contract Covid-19.

In the last few weeks, as more schools head back for the new year, hundreds of kids have become infected with the virus across the nation.

In Louisiana, 150 students and employees in Livingston Parish are quarantined after being exposed just four days into the new school year.

In Acadiana many school districts have delayed the start of school to the end of August or the day after Labor Day.

Dr. Tina Stefanski, director of Region 4 for the Louisiana Department of Health, said it was a good idea to push the start of school back a few weeks.

She said now is the time for parents and guardians to prepare children for the changes ahead, so they can have a successful school year.

"When we go back to school, it's bringing kids together, it's bringing teachers together...it's congregate settings.," Stefanski explained."We know this virus spreads very easily in congregant settings. Really, the key is going to be space, wearing face masks , and keeping your hands clean. Parents need to try and explain and get children prepared, now, so that when schools do open they do so successfully."

Stefanski added that the key to reopening schools safely is to make sure that we are at our lowest level of the virus circulating in the community.

She said this will prevent us from seeing a big cluster of cases.