During the height of the pandemic, schools sent children home if they had a sore throat, cough, headache or any other potential symptoms of COVID-19 and told them to stay home for up to two weeks if they had contact with someone who has COVID.
But California’s state of emergency is long gone, as more students miss school and fall behind in grade levels. So schools are changing course — now school and health officials say kids can still go to school even if they show mild respiratory symptoms or if they’ve been exposed to COVID, as long as they don’t have it.
The state health department released detailed new guidance earlier this month outlining under what circumstances a student should stay home from school or childcare.
In general, a student can go to school as long as their symptoms do not prevent them from “meaningful participation” in school or child care. Students should also stay home if their condition requires a level of care from school staff that would compromise the health or safety of other students, the guidance said.
The guidance recommends students with respiratory symptoms wear a mask to prevent spread.
The guidance details which scenarios and symptoms are considered more severe – including fever, breathing problems and repeated vomiting – and mean a student should not come to school.
The change in state guidance comes as schools try to reduce chronic student absenteeism rates, which have risen sharply since the start of the pandemic. Last school year, nearly one in four San Diego County public school students was chronically absent, compared to 11 percent of students before the pandemic.
The public health risk from COVID has decreased because hospitalizations and deaths have dropped significantly, said John Bradley, the director of the infectious diseases division at Rady Children’s Hospital. Meanwhile the risks to the education and social health of out-of-school children are becoming more prominent, he added.
“The fear that we all have that if a kid with COVID comes into school, it’s going to lead to hospitalizations and deaths of adults — that’s not driving policy anymore,” Bradley said. “The priority has shifted from saving lives to educating children.”
There are also many families who can’t take time off from work and stay home with their children whenever they, say, get a runny nose, said Davey Smith, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Diego. “It’s all risk and benefit. We still need children to go to school.”
Some education officials say they realize that strict COVID-era school health protocols, intended to reduce the spread of COVID during an emergency situation, have had the unintended effect of alienating children. in school more often than is currently considered necessary.
Not all parents know they no longer have to follow strict quarantine and isolation protocols, which contribute to student absences, said Tracy Schmidt, San Diego County director of attendance, safety and student engagement. Office of Education.
That’s a problem because when students miss too many days of school, they lose the benefits that schools can provide for students, not just learning but emotional support, social development and physical security.
“We began to realize that our health practices were inadvertently contributing to our crisis of chronic absenteeism,” Schmidt said. “Our focus at this point needs to shift from … preventing our students and instead doing everything we can to keep them in school.”
Before the pandemic, schools were more focused on reducing so-called unexcused absences, or truancy, Schmidt said. Now they are focusing more on excused absences, which include absences due to illness or medical appointments.
Just because these absences are neglected doesn’t mean they should be treated well, said Todd Langager from the county’s education office who is leading a countywide effort to reduce absenteeism. Excessive absences, regardless of the cause, keep children away from school.
That’s part of the schools’ job to combat chronic absenteeism, Langager said, letting parents know they don’t have to follow the strict protocols of the past three years.
“Covid is out there like the flu. As long as you don’t show specific symptoms, we want your son or daughter to be in school,” Langager said. “Schools are really trying to help will read the messages again.”
Parents who are unsure whether to keep their child home should talk to their school staff, Schmidt said. And if a parent suspects their child may have COVID, they should get tested right away, Bradley said. Some schools offer free at-home tests for families.
The guidance doesn’t eliminate the chances that diseases could spread at school but should be part of schools’ larger strategies to minimize the spread, state health officials said. Those strategies include ensuring high air quality, cleaning the face, washing hands and staying up-to-date on vaccinations.
Smith recommends that if students have a respiratory illness, such as a cold, they should stay home from school for the first two days of symptoms. That could reduce the likelihood of spread, since people are often most contagious in the first days of the illness, he said.
“Keeping a child at home for two days at first can be very beneficial … versus keeping them in the whole time. Maybe your benefit for reduced infection is very high, but you start to risk the educational opportunity for that child,” Smith said.
State officials say their guidance does not override advice from health care professionals, medical plans or students’ disability or recommendations to address specific diagnoses.
The guideline is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics in California, the California School Nurses Organization and the California Association of Communicable Disease Controllers, state officials said.
