Dear Waikīkī School Ohana:
Please read the following letter from Interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi. In the message, he summarizes the following updates from the March 10, 2022 Health and Safety Guidance.
Masks:
When community levels are high, masks must be worn in outdoor settings where
crowding or sustained close contact with others may occur, regardless of vaccination status. Honolulu is currently listed at LOW. As a result, wearing masks outdoors is optional for students, faculty and staff at all HIDOE schools and facilities.
Close contacts and quarantine:
Individual close contact identification, notification, and quarantine of in-school exposures is no longer required since universal indoor masking is continuing to be implemented at schools and Department facilities. As it currently stands, indoor masking will continue for Hawaii public schools even after Governor Ige's indoor statewide mask mandate expires on March 25, 2022.
In short, quarantine is not required for in-school exposures and individuals may remain in school.
Communication:
Notification of the entire school community is no longer required when a case is reported since all positive cases are now posted on the Department’s public website at https://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/ConnectWithUs/MediaRoom/PressReleases/Pages/COVID-19-Information-Updates.aspx
If there was potential exposure to a person with COVID-19 for greater than 15 minutes when indoors or during participation in a high risk activity (e.g. sports or singing) at school or a school-sponsored event, the impacted class or group (i.e. school staff and parent/guardian(s) of a student) will be notified via email as soon as possible. If you recently changed your email account, please update the school by emailing 150frontoffice@waikikischool.org.
Daily Wellness Check
Please continue to refer to the Daily Wellness Check every day prior to coming to school.
Symptom screening is not required upon arrival at the school or office, but symptom screening may be conducted for anyone who is showing signs of illness at school.
If Your Child is Sick (Any Symptoms from the Daily Wellness Check)
ISOLATE AND GET TESTED FOR COVID-19
● Stay home 5 days after symptoms onset OR a negative test result AND
● 24 hours with no fever without use of fever-reducing medications AND
● Symptoms improved. If symptoms are not improved, stay home.
A medical provider may use clinical judgment to allow return sooner than 5 days when there is low suspicion of COVID-19 or diagnosis of another health condition (e.g., allergy).
For clearance to attend school, the COVID test must be authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use (EUA) and be administered or observed by a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-certified laboratory or under an approved CLIA Certificate of Waiver. Unproctored home tests are currently not acceptable for clearance purposes.
Surveillance Testing
With community levels of transmission in Honolulu listed as LOW, it is no longer recommended that COVID screening testing take place for students (See Table 1 below from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing). As a result, Waikīkī School will not be offering COVID tests on campus to students unless community transmission rates increase.
