LAFAYETTE — Parents have reached out to us wanting to know about COVID-19 cases in schools, many of those questions and reports coming out of Lafayette Parish.
We asked the school system for confirmation about those cases listed from the state. They would only say they notify the state and anyone who has come into close contact with a potentially positive person.
School officials say they are followingall of the protocols based off on guidance from the Louisiana Department of Health. The system highlighted their plan includes 'students or staff who have been identified as a close contact to an ill person with COVID-19 will be required to quarantine and not return to school for 14 days from the last date they were exposed.'
In today's news conference, Governor Edwards did not specifically address the number of cases in schools, but confirms positive cases in the state are extremely high.
CLICK HERE TO SEE NUMBER OF CASES REPORTED IN SCHOOLS BY PARISH.
We have also reached out to other school systems in Acadiana, who are reporting similar protocols;
- ACADIA PARISH - "...notifies affected stakeholders at the school level in the event of a positive case and/or the need to quarantine due to close contacts of a positive case. We work to utilize standardized messaging, verbal and/or written, that does not violate privacy requirements as suggested by the LDOE and LDH. Also, each set of circumstances relative to notification is case specific. Regarding notifying the state, we upload positive cases in the LDH online portal." -Superintendent Scott M. Richard
- ST MARY PARISH - "St. Mary Parish goes by the Office of Public Health algorithm for determining if and who might be considered a contact to a positive. once, we determined that a person based on an algorithm is a contact to positive, then we call the parents to notify them of that. And we also send home a notification letter. for the rest of the school, we send home a courtesy letter to parents, just so that they know that there was a positive case reported at a school as a courtesy, so that they understand that had they had their child been in contact according to the algorithm and needs to seek assistance from the private health care provider would have received a notification letter or call. So we try to make sure that we inform everybody, depending on their level of contact with a positive case." The school system reports all positive to the cases as required to do so.
- VERMILION PARISH - "Basically we contact the parents of the close contacts. If we get information that we have a positive case, the parents of the close contact of students we have to quarantine, we reach out to those parents and our lower grades and we have static groups. We send out a letter to the classroom and somebody in the classroom. So we, it's through letters, we send letters. We don't do that in all situations like in high school because the kids go to seven classes, but but we do make contact with the close contact." ON REPORTING TO THE STATE: "We have a state reporting system, that's how the state knows our numbers. We have an actual database that we record any positive cases. Our legal risk manager records those every day, and says those names and as we get them, we send them in to the state."
- ST. MARTIN - St. Martin does JCalls for any positive cases or quarantines
The number of cases reported in schools by parish as of 11/10 can be seen below or by clicking the link above: