Dear LPS Parents:

Thank you all again for your support, partnership, and patience as the 2020-2021 school year moves forward.  Your diligent implementation of  COVID-19 health and safety measures has helped make it possible for our elementary students to attend school in-person five days a week and for our middle and high school students to attend school in-person two days a week.

Some of your students have experienced a Tri-County Health quarantine since the school year began. Since our first day of school, August 24, we have had 25 quarantines in response to positive cases of COVID.  We have not had any outbreaks and no transmission of the virus within the quarantined groups.  The quarantines have resulted in 115 staff and 927 students (about 6% of students) in quarantine.   Thank you for your patience here as well, as we all learn to navigate these quarantines together.

I am pleased to tell you that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has published revised Cases and Outbreak Guidance. It is our understanding that this new guidance will provide Tri-County Health and Littleton Public Schools with more appropriate protocols to:

• Better identify who should be quarantined when there is a positive student or staff member case of COVID-19;
• Result in fewer students and staff having to be quarantined each time there is a positive case of COVID-19, meaning more of our students and staff will be able to stay in school for in-person learning as well as continue to participate in activities and athletics.

Up until now, entire classrooms of students and sometimes multiple staff members would be included in each quarantine. Using the new guidelines, seating charts in classrooms and on busses will help Tri-County Health and LPS determine who was actually within 6 feet of someone testing positive for COVID-19 for 15 minutes or more. This will require more work for our teachers and our bus drivers; I know you join me in extending our sincere gratitude to all of our teachers and bus drivers for helping us minimize the number of people impacted by quarantines in the future.  Seating charts, along with mask wearing, hand washing, disinfecting, and symptom-screening are all part of our overlapping health and safety measures to keep everyone healthy and well.

We will continue to work with the Tri-County Health Department as we implement these guidelines.  The nurse consultant and I will also continue to work alongside building leaders as positive cases are identified.

Please remember that nothing is more important than the health and safety of our students and staff. That also includes their mental health. Teachers, principals, students and parents are all working together to make it possible for students to be in school with their teachers and with each other more often. Thank you for your continued partnership with us in these efforts.

Sincerely,

Melissa Cooper
Director of Student Support Services