Dear LNC Families,
Wednesday evening, the LNC Board of Education (BOE) met to reevaluate our COVID-19 protocols and LNC’s mask policy based on recent changes to the StrongSchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit. Published by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), the Toolkit provides public health guidance to K-12 public schools.
Last Thursday, NCDHHS announced two significant changes to the Toolkit, which become effective February 21, 2022. First, NCDHHS no longer recommends that schools contact trace due to the virulent nature of the Omicron strain and quick incubation period. Second, students and staff who have been exposed to COVID-19 but are not showing symptoms of the virus are no longer required to quarantine.
You will recall that the former guidance required any student or staff exposed to the virus to quarantine for a minimum of 5 days UNLESS both individuals were masked. With the elimination of this quarantine requirement, an individual’s personal decision relating to masking does not affect another individual’s opportunity to learn in-person, at school.
The LNC Safe Schools Committee met Monday to consider this new health guidance as well as an expected change to Mecklenburg County’s mask mandate (Mecklenburg County Commissioners voted to rescind the local mask requirement last evening, effective February 26, 2022).
Additionally, the committee also reviewed the precipitous drop in the COVID infection rates in both the school and local community, and the availability of the vaccine to all of our staff and students. All considered, the committee recommended LNC move to a mask optional policy. After thoroughly reviewing this recommendation and the reasons that led to it, last evening our BOE voted to support this recommendation for our staff and students, effective February 26, 2022. You can view the BOE meeting HERE.
LNC’s overarching goal for managing COVID-19 remains unchanged: To keep our students and staff safe while prioritizing in-person learning at school. With this change to guidance, we believe we can continue to achieve this goal with multiple mitigation strategies still in place while allowing our families to choose whether they continue to mask, based on their personal circumstances. For those families who would like to learn more about those mitigation strategies, you can find the Safe Schools Committee presentation HERE.
We recognize that any time there is a significant change to our operations in the face of COVID, it will be well received by some and potentially an area of concern for others. LNC will continue to provide COVID support through Ms. Shipman (MS/HS) and Nurse Denise (ES) and to practice enhanced safety and sanitation protocols. We encourage you to reach out to them if you have any questions. We appreciate our families’ support and trust as we continue to monitor and adjust appropriately to the evolving landscape.
