Newtown School Nursing Supervisor Anne Dalton, RN, released a letter to school families on March 8 regarding several new cases of COVID-19 at Newtown High School, sharing that students should “stay home if they are feeling sick.”

Dalton’s letter follows.

“After several quiet weeks on the COVID-19 front at school, we have recently seen several new cases at NHS. Please remember that it continues to be important to use all of our mitigation strategies as we wait for vaccines to become widely available. It is especially important to make sure that students stay home if they are feeling sick. We have had reports of students coming to school and attending extracurricular activities when not feeling well. When they test positive for COVID-19 several days later, we have to quarantine dozens of students who were exposed during the days before the positive test. This can be avoided by keeping sick students at home and having them tested if they have any symptom suggestive of COVID 19: new cough, fever, chills, fatigue, body aches, [and] loss of taste or smell.

Symptoms of illness that might go unnoticed in another year, should prompt families to seek testing. Testing is available for any student with symptoms at our School Based Health Center [SBHC]. You can contact Nancy Kettner at 203-270-6114 to arrange an appointment. Testing is by appointment only and is done on a ‘drive up’ basis outside of the SBHC door at Newtown Middle School.

On a happy note, over 550 staff members were vaccinated on Saturday. This means we are on our way towards a more normal school environment.

Thank you for your continued vigilance as we move towards better days to come.

Anne Dalton, RN, BSN

Newtown School Nursing Supervisor”