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‘Significant’ changes coming to Fraser Health school exposure notices

Surrey superintendent tweeted there will be 3 letters sent out to a school community
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Sept. 10, 2020 — In the photo is a W.L. McLeod student wearing a mask in a school bus, on his first day back-to-school. This year, due to COVID-19, students will have a different year than most. The President of B.C. Teachers’ Federation told Black Press Sept. 9, that she had a lot of mixed feeling about how ready the education system is for students to be coming back-to-school. Meanwhile, Libby Hart, Principal of W.L. Mcleod Elementary School in Vanderhoof said,” We know some of the families are still unsure, but most of our families have been great in connecting with us and talking to us.” Photos continued on Page 7. (Aman Parhar/Omineca Express)

Surrey school district Superintendent Jordan Tinney says there are “significant” changes coming to the way Fraser Health notifies schools of possible COVID-19 exposures.

In a tweet Saturday (Dec. 5), Tinney said with the changes, Fraser Health will “now specifically (be) informing people in a class whether they have been exposed or not exposed.”

The changes start Saturday, according to Tinney’s tweet.

There will be three different types of letters that go to a school community: early notification of exposure, early notification for no exposure and and early notification to the entire school.

The early notification of exposure is “only the classes where a positive case was in attendance during their infectious period will get this letter.”

All others in the school will get a “not exposed” letter.

The entire school community will get the early notification “only when a case is not attached to any specific class.” An example would be “where the case is a vice-principal who would not be assigned a specific class.”

When these letters are sent, according to the tweet, contact tracing is “still underway.”

As soon as contact tracing is completed, Fraser Health will issue a school bulletin “to let the school community know that all their work with the associated positive case is completed.”

READ ALSO: Surrey students voice concerns about mask wearing, distancing in schools, Nov. 28, 2020

READ ALSO: Surrey music teacher at home after two-week hospital stay battling COVID-19, Nov. 28, 2020



lauren.collins@surreynowleader.com

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Lauren Collins

About the Author: Lauren Collins

I'm a provincial reporter for Black Press Media's national team, after my journalism career took me across B.C. since I was 19 years old.
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