COVID-19 Alternate In-Person School Attendance Overview

Fighting COVID-19 Together

Alternate In-Person School Attendance Strategy

The Livingston County Health Department (LCHD) has partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute of Health (NIH), University of Massachusetts, and CareEvolution, to offer Livingston County public and private school students the opportunity to enroll in an alternate school attendance strategy for the 2021-2022 school year.

Schools are not required to participate in the Alternate In-Person School Attendance Strategy (ASA). Schools must opt into the ASA Strategy for their students to participate.

What is Alternate In-Person School Attendance?

LCHD explored the use of at-home COVID testing as part of the ASA Strategy in order to:

Increase testing opportunities for students.
Allow students the option to remain in in-person learning and limit lost educational time.
Understand transmission between students in the educational setting in order to inform infection prevention decision making in the schools.

How does Alternate In-Person School Attendance work?

If your student is identified by the school as a close contact, you will be contacted by LCHD via SMS or email. Students will the following two options to choose from:

Option 1: Standard School Exclusion

Under Standard School Exclusion (SSE), it is recommended that your student stay home for the duration of their exclusion period.

It is recommended that your student stay home for 5 days.

The student may return to school while wearing a well-fitting mask on day 6 if symptoms are improved or resolved and the student has been fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medicine. The student must wear a mask for all in-person school-related activities for days 6 through 10. It is recommended that the student continue to monitor for symptoms through day 10.

Option 2: Alternate In-Person School Attendance

The Alternate In-Person School Attendance Strategy allows exposed students to attend school and continue with in-person learning. The following are required to participate in Alternate In-Person School Attendance:

	Your student must wear a properly fitting mask for all in-person school-related activities.
	Every day at 5:00pm, you will receive email and SMS messages with a link to check in.
	Each check-in, you must perform a daily symptom screening and a free at-home COVID-19 test provided by your student's school. The process should take about 15 minutes every day.
	If the student does not complete the above conditions, tests positive for COVID-19, or develops symptoms, they cannot attend in-person school-related activities.
	Students cannot attend in-person school-related activities until they have completed their first symptom screening and at-home test and uploaded the results.