Roots, Resilience & Renewal - Week 9 Updates

SUPERINTENDENT’S UPDATES:

Strategic Plan

FCCPS appreciates the engagement of so many of you (students, staff, parents, and community members) in the Strategic Planning process. In addition to the many Focus Groups held, more than 80 of you joined us for the Town Hall last night. The insights and thoughts you shared will help us enormously as we continue shaping the future of our great school division.  Please note, today is the last day to complete the Community Assessment. To date, we have received nearly 400 comments, thoughts, and suggestions through the Community Assessment Form. 

Vaccines for 5-11 Year-Olds

Immediately following the approval of vaccinations, we hope parents will take their children to their local provider,  pharmacies/groceries providing the vaccine, or other local health district sites such as the old Lord and Taylor site at Tysons Corner.  The Tysons Corner Vaccination Center is prepared to provide close to 3,000 shots per day. The FCHD will also be deploying mobile vaccination locations all over the health district to facilitate the vaccination of children ages 5-11.  Later this year, the FHD will move to school sites for after-school and weekend clinics so that parents can be present when their child is vaccinated. If we can get these sites going, we anticipate running them for about two weeks. Following that, there would be a “catch all” period where we would try to get anyone left from the schools that haven’t been vaccinated. 

Vaccines are an important mitigation layer. Once 5-11 year old students are two weeks post their second vaccine, the same rules for contact tracing and quarantine that are in place for all vaccinated individuals will apply to students ages 5-11.  If a student is vaccinated and considered a close contact, they will not have to “pause” or be quarantined, so long as they are symptom-free. So please get your child vaccinated as soon as you have the chance!!

Mitigation Matters

Here are three things you can do to be ready “just in case” you need to test your student or yourself.

  1. Take a couple of minutes to watch the How do I use the BinaxNow/eMed test kit? video to learn more about the process.

  2. Download the NAVICA application from your provider on your tablet or mobile device and set up profiles for your family members. 

  3. Visit and “Bookmark” http://virginia.emed.com/ to learn more as this is the webpage everyone will use for the BinaxNOW testing process. (The Spanish version and resources can also be found there.)

ViSSTA Screening Test Process:

We are very excited to announce that FCCPS has been matched with a vendor to begin our COVID screening test program. As of today, 574 permissions to screen have been completed thus far. (541 students; 33 staff members). If you have not already done so, please sign up to permit your student(s) to participate at Parent/Legal Guardian and Employee Voluntary Authorization Form  

MYTH-BUSTERS: 

  • Please know that this process will not result in your student being paused or quarantined if they are in a positive pool. 

  • The only students or staff that will have to pause/quarantine will be those who are actually positive on the individual PCR test. 

  • During the testing, students and staff are only swabbed one time, and it is a shallow swab - this is not the deep nasal swab.

For more information, please visit our list of ViSSTA FAQs and be on the lookout for a letter to help with any “myth-busting” regarding the process. 

FCCPS COVID By The Numbers:

Data:

This Week:

Cumulative from August 1:

# of Student Cases:

2

22

# of Staff Cases

1

7

# of Students in Quarantine

20

99

FCCPS Rate of Transmission

Moderate for Falls Church City

High for Fairfax Health District

Please note that this data is just a snapshot of FCCPS in total and is adjusted based on the outcomes of each individual contact tracing investigation.

Please stay safe and dry as we experience the rain and the potential impacts of flooding. Have a wonderful weekend, despite the weather!

Peter