School is back for many students across the Commonwealth. With Covid cases on the rise in other parts of the country we talked with local school leaders to find out how they’re making sure students have a healthy school year.
We learned the State College Area School District’s plan for the next possible Covid spike in their area and that they are following protocol and doing what they can to prevent it.
Many kids come home from school feeling sick.
Through sharing things like pencils to desks to lockers it is hard to avoid this.
A local doctor told me the best ways parents can try and make sure their kids stay healthy throughout the school year.
“I think the number one thing is just simply prevention. that starts with good handwashing, making sure you’re up to date on all the vaccines, if there are questions regarding the vaccines making sure that you contact your child’s primary provider or your primary health care provider.”
Even if they are doing these things a child can come back with anything from a cold to a more serious infection.
Thompson told me about some signs all parents should be looking for before they send their kids to school.
“A temperature over 100 degrees, vomiting within the last 24 hours, diarrhea within the last 24 hours, any type of rash, determining if their eyes are yucky, keep them home for that.”
With Covid cases rising again in some parts of the country
The school district’s director of student services told me about how they are keeping an eye on the situation both locally and internally.
“We monitor to see if there is something that we need to do and so we could even isolate something. if there’s like a class that’s being impacted and we have 10 or more kids out and we usually look at triggers of 3 and then determine are the three related?”
While the surge has not hit our area yet Dr. Hester said that Mount Nittany Health are keeping a close eye on the situation.
“We are always worried about potential national trends spreading locally and there has been in Pennsylvania a slight increase in cases as well. locally we haven’t seen a significant change in our cases at Mount Nittany Health but we’re keeping track of it.”
