Ann Arbor Public Schools has modified their COVID policies around quarantining, isolation, and testing for January 2022 and beyond.
The CDC made modifications to their quarantine guidelines in late December 2021 and in January 2022 MDHHS and Washtenaw County Health issued revised guidance for schools.
The full guidance can be found on the district’s website.
Contact Tracing Limited
Contact Tracing is more limited than it was before. It is now only being done in high risk settings, not low risk settings. Expect to receive less notifications that your child is a close contact.
High risk situations include:
- Extracurriculars:
- Sports with close contact like basketball, wrestling, and ice hockey
- Performing arts including unmasked Theater, band, and choir
- Carpools
- Classrooms without masks (some special education classrooms)
- Classrooms with known outbreaks
- Other high risk situations as identified by the school nurse and WCHD
Most typical classroom situations – including lunch and snack time – are classified as low risk and do not require contact tracing according to Washtenaw County Health Department.
At the Wednesday, January 26 Board Meeting, Dr Swift clarified that while WCHD considers lunch and snack to be high risk, AAPS was planning to still contact trace at these times. However, the extremely high cases seen the prior week made lunchtime tracing too onerous. They are still watching for clusters of cases whose infectious period overlapped and conducting detailed contact tracing on those groups for lunch times.
Actions of a Close Contact
The need to quarantine is based on the vaccination status of the contact and whether they show symptoms.
Fully vaccinated individuals or those who have had COVID in the last 90 days, do not need to quarantine unless they have symptoms. Adults (18+) are only considered fully vaccinated if they have a booster shot or have received the Pfizer/Moderna 2nd dose between 14 days and 6 months ago or the J&J shot between 2 weeks and 2 months ago . Students 5-17 are considered fully vaccinated 14+ days after their second dose.
Positive Case
As with the standard health department guidelines, students and staff can return 5 days after a positive test with no or greatly reduced symptoms. For days 6-10 they have to wear a high filtration mask. Test are encouraged before returning, but not necessary. I have heard that tests can continue to be positive for weeks after a positive test.
Your contact screening will also shift to focusing on only areas of high exposure.
Test To Stay
Test to stay may be used for asymptomatic unvaccinated individuals if parents sign a permission slip and the district has excess resources. (Get vaccinated and there is no need for test to stay)
Masking
High filtration masks are now required from days 6-10 after a positive test or under the Test to Stay program. High filtration masks include surgical, N95, and KN95 masks. Cloth masks are not considered high filtration masks. If you need assistance with obtaining high filtration masks, ask your school office.
My daughter’s high school said that they will be more strict with mask enforcement. Students who repeatedly need to be asked to wear their mask correctly will be sent home. However, she still reports issues in the hallway.
Vaccination & Testing Options
AAPS continues to run vaccination clinics and has also offered testing recently. Check out our COVID vaccination and testing resources.
