The NHSD Board of Education approved the district’s Health and Safety Plan for the 2022-23 school year at its meeting on Aug. 4, 2022.
School districts like NHSD that receive federal funding under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund are required to develop and keep a health and safety plan publicly accessible for as long as funding is being received. The plan must be reviewed and updated, if necessary, no less than every six months or whenever there are significant changes to CDC guidance for K-12 schools.
The plan in place for the start of the 2022-23 school year includes:
- Masks are optional at all times in all school buildings unless otherwise directed by the superintendent or by school board action.
- Some furniture that had been removed from classrooms and instructional spaces to accommodate physical distancing will be returned as authorized by Dr. Mannarino. This includes the return to “pod-like” desk configurations to accommodate furniture such as “kidney” tables and reading spaces that are conducive and beneficial to learning.
- NHSD will not contact trace or identify close contacts of positive COVID cases and will not require healthy students to isolate or quarantine due to close contact of a COVID case. Additionally, the district will not track or count COVID cases.
The plan can be reviewed in its entirety at this link.