Local schools to make minor changes to COVID protocols

Local schools will tweak social distancing guidelines this week after the state health department made changes to its recommendations.

Until now, staff and students have had to quarantine for two weeks if it’s determined they were within six feet of someone who tested positive for COVID-19. That is now reduced to three feet, limiting the number of students impacted when someone contracts the virus.

Starting today, students can also sit as close as three feet apart in the classroom, but will have to wear masks as long as they are within six feet of each other, said Betsy Swearingen, director of the Johnson County Health Department.

The change does not apply to other spaces at schools, such as cafeterias and gymnasiums, where students will have to remain six feet apart, Swearingen said.

The changes follow new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, echoed during a news conference Wednesday by Kristina Box, Indiana’s health commissioner.

Local school leaders will likely reject the possibility of a shortened quarantine. During the news conference, Box said staff and students could return to school after 10 days of quarantine as long as they remain asymptomatic and wear a mask at all times at school for the remaining four days.

Other aspects of the rule made it difficult to follow, which is why schools will most likely stick with the original guidance, Swearingen said.

Among those, students who returned to school before two weeks elapsed would have to eat by themselves in the cafeteria and would be barred from extracurricular activities until the end of the 14th day after exposure, she said.

Box during Wednesday’s news conference also mentioned a seven-day quarantine, as long as the staff member or student takes a COVID-19 test during the fifth, sixth or seventh day of quarantine, and gets a negative result. Johnson County schools will not make that change either, as it creates too much room for error, Swearingen said.