Contact tracing is performed by a trained campus team to determine who met the CDC guideline for close contact -- close contacts are notified and directed to quarantine for 14 days. If individuals did not have close contact with the confirmed COVID-19 case, the district does not require them to take special action.

Buildings are deep cleaned with hospital-grade cleaning products after a reported case in the building to ensure the safety of those in the building. Additionally, close contacts of the confirmed case are notified directly and directed to quarantine for 14 days.

Do not enter a district facility if you have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19, including household members. If you are a student, please call the school. If you are an employee, please notify the Alief ISD Risk Management Department.

In accordance with local health guidance, Alief's health and safety protocol requires that anyone who has had close contact with a confirmed COVID case must quarantine for 14 days. However, you will not be asked to quarantine if you have had contact with someone who has been exposed to a confirmed case (but has not been confirmed positive themselves). 

In other words, if you spend 15 minutes within 6 ft. of a student who later tests positive, you will be asked to quarantine. Others in the building who had close contact with you will not be asked to quarantine, so long as they did not have close contact with the positive student and so long as you yourself do not later test positive.

To summarize, exposure to a confirmed case = quarantine. Exposure to an exposed person does not require quarantine. 

Lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases among Alief ISD on-campus learners and employees are documented on the COVID-19 Dashboard (https://www.aliefisd.net/covidcases).

Federal privacy laws such as HIPAA do not allow us to disclose private health information about an individual.

Staff and students who have been identified through contact tracing as being in close contact with the positive individual are contacted directly.

If there is a lab-confirmed positive COVID-19 case within a building, parents and staff will receive an update through district/school communication channels in an effort to keep stakeholders informed.

If you are a parent and do not receive a call-out alert or email from Alief ISD regarding a positive case in your child’s school, please ensure your contact information is up to date by logging into your parent Home Access Center account at https://wwww.aliefisd.net/hac and updating your contact information. If you cannot log into your parent Home Access Center account, please directly call your child’s school. To protect student information, once they verify that you are the parent/guardian, they will be able to assist you with account access.

If you are an employee and do not receive a call-out alert or email from Alief ISD regarding a positive case in your building, please ensure your contact information is up to date by logging into your Employee Online account and updating your contact information. If you do not have access to Employee Online, please contact the Alief ISD Human Resources Department to update your contact information.

Alief ISD is requiring that parents self-screen their children before their student leaves home each morning. This way, if the student has a fever or other symptoms, he/she will not potentially infect other students or staff on the bus or upon entering the building. 

Moreover, the CDC does not recommend that schools conduct student screenings for a number of reasons, including that 40% of COVID-19 positive individuals do not exhibit any symptoms at all (to learn more, please see the CDC website). Alief ISD encourages parents to monitor their children’s health on a daily basis and to not send their children to school and consult a physician if their child exhibits the following symptoms: 

• fever or chills
• cough
• shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• fatigue
• muscle or body aches
• headache
• new loss of taste or smell
• sore throat
• congestion or runny nose
• nausea or vomiting
• diarrhea

Should the CDC change its recommendation, we will reevaluate our district's approach.

District staff members from instruction, maintenance, custodial along with several current and former building principals comprised the membership of the committee. They in turn worked with guidance and input from TEA, the CDC, the Harris County Health Department along with staff from West Houston Hospital to develop a plan that complied with the TEA mandate of opening schools for in-person instruction.

The purpose of the COVID-19 health/safety walkthrough is to ensure that campuses are implementing COVID-19 protocols with fidelity and that they are equipped with the necessary support, tools, and guidance to successfully mitigate COVID-19. This is meant to be a supportive measure and a way to act on our commitment to student/staff safety. This process will not be punitive; campuses that report having challenges implementing protocols will receive support, not consequences. We may also adjust our protocol in response to what schools share from their walkthroughs. Schools will share requests for support and a summary of their observations with the central office (only after the school team meets internally and discusses results with the principal). Schools are not required to share the detailed completed checklists with the central office.

COVID-19 is not a condition/disability under the ADA. We use the ADA as a framework to allow for employees to make a doctor’s advice of “risk” determination known to the district/employer to allow for an accommodation or modification process. It is our intent to work to help alleviate risk where we can but we have very little flexibility to perform district jobs remotely without creating an undue burden on the students/school/district and coworkers. It is not even across jobs, campuses or the district as each school and population has differing circumstances and needs with the students attending in person, virtually. Also, it is not certain that circumstances remain constant – if a modification of someone’s work environment can help at a later date, that too can help remedy a request filed now.

That depends on the specific circumstances. For example:

• If Alief ISD sends the employee for testing or Alief requires the employee to quarantine at home, the staff member will be instructed to use the FFCRA code for their absences and the employee can get approval to work virtually if their job allows for that.  
• If an employee chooses to get tested out of abundance of caution on their own and has no symptoms, they are to code the absence as personal illness until such time as they get a test result back.  
• If an employee is sick and tests, they are to code the absence as personal illness until such time as they get a test result back.

Generally speaking, certain roles are better suited to remote work than others. Principals are using their discretion when deciding whether a quarantined employee should work remotely based on a number of factors, including: 

• The staff member's role, skill set, and experience level
• Logistical/scheduling considerations
• Whether the staff member is physically able to work while being quarantined (e.g. severity of symptoms)
• Availability of on-site staff/substitutes 

We know that as educators, our best work happens face to face with students. Being asked to work remotely is a reflection of health/safety priorities in an unprecedented time, and it is intended as only a temporary measure. As much as possible, we aim to have our staff members in school in order to support our students and provide adequate supervision to ensure social distancing. We appreciate your flexibility in allowing campus leaders to make decisions in the best interest of the school community.

Yes, if a student meets virtual attendance requirements (outlined online at https://www.aliefisd.net/virtualattendance), the student is still counted as present even if the student is learning from home.