COVID-19 - Kaʻōhao School

This page was updated on 1/20/2022

Students and Staff Who Test Positive for COVID-19 (ISOLATION)

Students and staff who test positive for COVID-19, regardless of immunization status, should not come to school for at least 5 days after symptoms onset, or if asymptomatic, at least 5 days after the date of positive test. Day 0 is the first day of symptoms or the first day of a positive test, and Day 1 is the first full day after. Positive individuals need to wait until at least Day 6 to return to school.

Symptoms must have resolved or greatly improved prior to return to school and there must be no fever for the past 24 hours without fever-reducing medication.

Strict mask wearing is required for days 6-10 anytime positive individuals are around others. This means that we will need to be more careful around lunch/snack time during days 6-10 to ensure that there is adequate distance between the individual that is positive and others.

The change to 5 days is due to recent studies that show that the majority of COVID-19 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and 2-3 days after.

If you have access to a rapid antigen test, we encourage positive individuals to ensure they have a negative test prior to return to school. Please do not use a PCR test for this purpose because PCR tests can stay positive for up to 12 weeks after an infection.

Students and Staff Who Are Close Contacts of a COVID-19 Case (QUARANTINE)

For those who are Boosted or Fully Vaccinated Recently, or those who had a test-confirmed case of COVID-19 in the past 90 days, the CDC and HDOH states that quarantine is not required unless symptoms develop. For everyone else, at least 5 days of quarantine is required. For both cases, testing on day 5 is strongly recommended. Day 0 is the last day of contact with the positive individual, and Day 1 is the first full day after. (Fully Vaccinated Recently means you completed your second dose of Pfizer/Moderna vaccine within the past 6 months or Johnson & Johnson vaccine within the past 2 months.)

For the purposes of school at Ka’ohao, there is a positive case in the class cohort, then the entire student class will be required to not come to school until 5 days have passed, regardless of the child’s immunization status. However, those children who are fully immunized do not have to quarantine at home, even though they will not come to school. They must continue to mask around others. The reason for sending the entire class home and not just those who are unvaccinated is because of challenges with contact tracing, logistics and staffing. We do not have the ability at this time to offer in-person learning for vaccinated children and virtual learning for unvaccinated children. This policy is subject to change and we are actively discussing other options. Our goal is to have as many students as possible safely benefit from in-person learning.

All exposed individuals should monitor for COVID-19-like symptoms for 14 days and should get tested as soon as any symptoms may appear.
All exposed must continue to adhere to masking requirements.