Well Student Visits
As always, students requiring health and counseling services will be able to visit the Health Services facility 24/7 at Pyne Cottage. Students should continue to wear masks when indoors and those students who visit Health Services for daily medication will do so at designated times.

Ill Student Visits
Students who are ill should phone ahead if possible and be reminded of how to properly enter the building for assessment. The nurse will admit them to an isolated assessment space, if needed. If there is concern about potential infectious illness, students are transported to our Health Services Annex.

As of Thursday, March 31, 2022, the School will move to a program of symptomatic testing, meaning that we will only test members of the St. Mark's community if they present symptoms of COVID-19. Our weekly surveillance testing program will end.

As we transition from campus-wide PCR surveillance testing to symptomatic antigen testing, all students are expected to report to Health Services for an antigen test if they experience symptoms. If a student, faculty, or staff member is not feeling well, it is essential that they take an antigen test prior to returning to in-person activity.  

1. Quarantine: Separates and restricts the movement of people who are suspected to have or were potentially exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick. The Health Services Annex has specially designed spaces for quarantine to provide this clinical separation.
    
2. Isolation: Separates sick people with a contagious disease from people who are not sick. As with quarantine, the School’s Health Services Annex has specially designed spaces for this purpose.
    
3. Any student who tests positive for COVID-19 would be isolated at the Health Services Annex until they are able to be taken off campus to quarantine at home or with the local guardian. If unable to return home due to logistic reasons, then the student will isolate at the School’s Health Services Annex for a minimum of 10 days and until at least three days have passed with no fever and improvement in other symptoms as noted. Contact tracing for possible close contacts will be done in cooperation with the Southborough Department of Public Health.
    
4. The campus community will be notified that a positive case of COVID-19 has been confirmed on campus and that any close contacts of the confirmed case will be notified and isolated as needed or as deemed necessary through the contact tracing process.
    
5. If a student is home and tests positive for COVID-19, then self-isolation will occur for a minimum of 10 days and until at least three days have passed with no fever and improvement in other symptoms as noted. Return to campus will also require clearance from the health care provider.

    

1. Contact tracing is the process of determining the close contacts of a the confirmed case for two days prior to the development of symptoms or from two days prior to the date of the positive test and until the case became isolated.
    
2. A close contact is any person who was within six feet or less for 15 minutes or more either two days before the first symptoms of COVID-19 or two days before the positive test results, whichever is earlier. 
    
3. Use of the daily attestation app by students and adults will become part of the contact tracing data/research.
    
4. Whether a student or adult, Health Services staff will interview the person with the positive case about close contacts. Our director of Health Services has firsthand experience working through this with Partners in Health and will conduct the interviews of others with sensitivity and according to best practice to elicit the information needed. In addition, our School’s nursing staff as well as our athletic trainers have also completed contract tracing training through Johns Hopkins Health. Finally, the Town of Southborough’s director of the Board of Health will also be involved.

    

1. The campus buildings, including all restrooms, classrooms, common areas, hallways, and stairways will be cleaned. Our custodial staff has been trained in FDA cleaning best practices as they apply to COVID-19 disinfecting. 
    
2. Daily cleaning of all spaces continues throughout the campus including all classrooms, restrooms, dormitories, dormitories bathrooms/showers, all common areas, hallways and other spaces throughout the campus. In addition, the dining halls will be cleaned after each meal.

    

1. If a student or staff member has COVID-19-like symptoms, they may return to campus after they have tested negative for COVID-19, have improvement in symptoms, and have been without fever for at least 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medications. If a provider makes an alternative diagnosis for COVID-19-like symptoms, the individual may return to school based on the recommendations for that alternative diagnosis (e.g., influenza or strep/pharyngitis).
    
2. If a student or staff member presents COVID-19-like symptoms and chooses not to be tested, they may return to school 10 days from start of symptoms, as long as their symptoms have improved and they have been without fever for at least 24 hours prior to their return to school without the use of fever reducing medication.

    

1. Definition: Any person who has been closer than six feet of distance for more than 15 minutes with someone who is a confirmed case of COVID-19. Direct contact with the secretions of a person who is a confirmed case of COVID-19 (such as sharing eating utensils, or being coughed upon) would also be defined as “close contact."
    
2. Possible close contacts should not come back to the school community until they have been tested and self-quarantined at home for 14 days. If an individual tests positive for COVID-19, then self-isolation is for a minimum of 10 days and until at least three days have passed with no fever and improvement in other symptoms as noted. If the test is negative, the student/staff can return to school if asymptomatic after the 14 day quarantine period.
    
3. In either case, documentation of a negative COVID 19 test is not a substitute for the 14 day isolation period.