November 11, 2022 For Immediate Release
Baltimore City Public Schools is working diligently to keep students, staff, and school communities safe and healthy. As we get updated guidance from health experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we will continue to update our COVID health and safety procedures and precautions.
Below are some updates to our COVID health and safety procedures:
Holiday At-Home Testing
Before the Thanksgiving and Winter breaks, we will provide COVID test kits to every student and all staff. Students and staff should take the tests 1 to 2 days before returning to school and report any positive cases to our contact tracing team at 443-984-1200 or contacttracing@bcps.k12.md.us.
School-based COVID screening testing
The CDC and health experts have said that bi-weekly screening testing is no longer recommended in a K-12 setting. As a result, starting January 3, 2023, we will no longer conduct screening testing in schools every other week. We will continue to test students that show COVID symptoms in the school health suites and provide take-home tests to students, staff and families as needed.
Notification of Positive Cases
Starting January 3, 2023, schools will no longer notify families about individual cases. We will continue to note any cases on our COVID dashboard. We will notify an impacted classroom or school of an outbreak, which consists of three or more cases that are linked.
Masks
Masks will continue to be optional in City Schools buildings and on school grounds but are required these circumstances:
- known close contacts for 10 days after exposure
- those recovering from COVID for 10 days from the start of isolation
- someone who develops COVID-like symptoms while at school.
Isolation
Individuals who test positive must continue to isolate for at least 5 days, with day 0 being the day of the positive test.
Reporting
Please continue to report any positive cases to your school and our contact tracing team at 443-984-1200 or Email Contact Racing