Dear AUHSD Parents & Guardians,

We are about half way through the First Quarter and the steps toward student and staff health and safety on our campuses have been assuring. While COVID-19 certainly remains present on our campuses and in the community and we must remain cautious, evidence of on-campus transmission has been limited. Our students are following health and safety protocols and masking indoors, and their high vaccination rates have resulted in minimal quarantines.

The current COVID-19 Dashboard can always be found at this link. The Dashboard shows positive case and quarantine data by school site for the most recent week and shows longitudinal data for the District. The Dashboard is updated on Mondays by 1:00 pm. To clarify, if there is a positive case on a campus, the whole school community will not necessarily be notified. If your student is a contact of a positive case, you will be notified. If there is a cluster of positive cases on a campus, the principal will notify the general community.

In partnership with our K-8 partner districts in Walamorinda, we are hosting COVID-19 PCR testing in our communities 5 days a week. We encourage participation in this surveillance testing program as it makes us all safer. Particularly if your student was identified as a contact (but does not need to quarantine due to vaccination status) or was in a COVID-19 risky situation, we encourage you participate. Appointments can be made through the links at the bottom of this webpage for all testing sites. Create an account first and then hit the schedule link. You can also schedule COVID-19 testing through most healthcare providers and the County Health Services testing site.

There is a very high vaccination rate among all staff working in our schools. Given the State Public Health Officer Order of August 11, 2021, all AUHSD staff who are not vaccinated will be doing weekly COVID-19 testing beginning next week as a safety precaution. The AUHSD Governing Board will consider a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for staff with limited exemption at their next Governing Board meeting on September 22.

California Department of Public Health released their guidance for school-based extracurricular activities last week with an update to their K-12 school guidance.

The CDPH establishes that masks must be worn for indoor sports unless masks are determined a choking hazard by the guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) or other well-recognized health authority. For our activities, AAP considers masks a choking hazard in wrestling and competitive cheer. CDPH establishes weekly PCR COVID-19 testing as an alternative for these athletes. The guidance also states alternatives to standard indoor masking for musicians playing wind instruments.

Also last week, Contra Costa Health Services released recommendations and requirements for youth sports and extracurricular activities in the County. An additional requirement will be that unvaccinated athletes in high-risk indoor activities (cheer, wrestling, basketball & volleyball) will need to participate in a COVID-19 testing program per the guidance. Athletic directors and music teachers will provide more information as we operationalize these safety protocols for extracurricular activities.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership to keeps our schools safe.

Sincerely,

John Nickerson

Superintendent