Hillsborough Lays Out How They Will Handle Sick Cases In Schools

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — Although Hillsborough Township Public Schools is kicking off its school year with virtual learning on Friday, the district has laid out their plan on how to handle sick cases when in-person learning resumes in three weeks.

At the last Board of Education meeting, Dr. Bert Mandelbaum (school physician) and Siobhan Spano (Hillsborough Township Health Officer) presented to the Hillsborough Board of Education staff coronavirus school considerations.

One of the topics discussed is what to do if a student is sick:

• If a student appears sick with a fever, respiratory symptoms, or GI symptoms they will be sent home immediately
• Siblings of the child will likely be sent home
• Students cannot return to school for at least 10 days from the first day of symptoms and need 24 hours of improvement of symptoms unless they have a negative COVID-19 test and have improved for 24 hours orthey have a physician's note with a specific alternative diagnosis explaining the symptoms.

If there is a positive coronavirus case:

• The school will work closely with the local department of health
• Exposures are considered face-to-face, where students have spent more than 10 minutes and less than 6 feet apart from the person in question.
• Though masking significantly lowers risk, to err on side of caution, masks will not be considered when making a determination in quarantining
• Most likely students or teachers exposed to the index case in the same class will be quarantined for 14 days unless they can attest to the 6 feet/10 minute rule.
• Reducing class sizes and cohorting, limits the amount of people who might be quarantined.
• If there is a positive case, a note will go out to the school
• The child/teacher will not be identified, but the Department Of Health will work with the school to see who was exposed. Each exposed person will get a phone call.
• With 1 case, the school will likely not be shut down. Multiple cases may result in a shutdown.

The district will start the 2020-21 school year on Sept. 4 in an all-virtual mode, which will continue through Friday, Sept. 25. The district will then switch gears and begin hybrid instruction on Tuesday, Sept. 29. Read More: Hillsborough Schools Will Reopen With All Virtual Learning

Low-incidence classes (such as Autism, LLD-Severe, Mild/Moderate, Behavior Disabilities) will attend in-person instruction beginning Tuesday, Sept. 8, depending upon class size and instructional space.

See below to hear the full presentation to the board:

As of Wednesday, Hillsborough has a total of 522 coronavirus cases and 76 deaths

• Read more: NJ Coronavirus Updates: Here's What You Need To Know

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