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exclude students from attending school in person who are actively sick with COVID-19, who are
suspected of being actively sick with COVID-19, or who have received a positive test result for
COVID-19, and must immediately notify parents if this is determined while on campus.
Parents must ensure they do not send a child to school on campus if the child has COVID-19
symptoms or is test-confirmed with COVID-19, until the conditions for re-entry are met. See the
DSHS rule
for more details, including the conditions for ending the exclusion period and
returning to school.
During the exclusion period, the school system may deliver remote instruction consistent with
the practice of remote conferencing outlined in the proposed Student Attendance Accounting
Handbook (SAAH) rules, as described here.
To help mitigate the risk of asymptomatic individuals being on campuses, school systems may
provide and/or conduct recurring COVID-19 testing using rapid tests provided by the state or
other sources. Testing can be conducted with staff. With prior written permission of parents,
testing can be conducted with students.
Students Who Are Close Contacts
As a reference, close contact determinations are generally based on guidance
outlined by the
CDC, which notes that individuals who are fully vaccinated may not need to follow the stay-at-
home period.
As noted above, public health authorities will be notified of all positive cases in schools. While
school systems are not required to conduct COVID-19 case investigations, local public health
entities have authority to investigate cases and are currently engaged in cooperative efforts on
that front. Participation by individuals in these investigations remains voluntary. If school
systems are made aware that a student is a close contact, the school system must notify the
student’s parents.
School systems may choose to require household-based close contact students to stay at home
during the below stay-at-home period if they are in an area with high or rising COVID case rates.
This applies specifically to students who are close contacts because an individual who lives in
the same household is COVID-19 positive.
Independent of whether a school system chooses to implement the above requirement, parents
of students who are determined to be close contacts of an individual with COVID-19 may opt to
keep their students at home during the recommended stay-at-home period. In cases when it is
permitted, parents who opt to send their children to school in the two weeks following exposure
are encouraged to closely monitor their children for symptoms.
For individuals who are determined to be close contacts, a 14-day stay-at-home period was
previously advised by the CDC based on the incubation period of the virus. The CDC has since
updated its guidance, and the stay-at-home period can end for students experiencing no
symptoms on Day 10 after close contact exposure, if no subsequent COVID-19 testing is
performed.