October 9, 2020
To the Lancaster County Career & Technology Students and Families,
Two Lancaster County Career & Technology Center students informed the CTC this morning that they have tested positively for coronavirus. This makes a total of three students with positive test results since Monday, October 5 (two at Willow Street campus and one at Mount Joy campus). The CTC administration has notified the state Department of Health (DOH) and begun contact tracing.
The Lancaster County CTC is closing the Willow Street, Mount Joy, and Brownstown high school campuses early today with a planned reopening on Tuesday, October 13. Students should report back to school at their regular time on Tuesday, October 13, unless otherwise informed by the LCCTC. Non-essential CTC staff and faculty should remain at home and work remotely wherever possible. The shutdown does not apply to Practical Nursing at the Health Science campus and the Commercial Driver’s Training Center at Mount Joy.
We make this decision given the interconnectedness of transportation between the LCCTC campuses and the sending school districts. The LCCTC chooses to act in an abundance of caution and close all CTC high school campuses for the recommended period of time. This action is also in accordance with the recommendations from the PA Departments of Education (PDE) and the DOH. The LCCTC will perform a deep cleaning and disinfection of affected areas during the shutdown.
Please note – We are conducting contact tracing now. You will be contacted directly by a CTC administrator if you or your student may need to quarantine.
Everyone at the Lancaster County CTC hopes that all of the infected students and any individuals in close contact with them get or remain well. Any infection is unfortunate but the identification of cases and the closure of school buildings shows that our Health and Safety Plan is working as it should. The LCCTC and our partnering Lancaster school districts take the pandemic extremely seriously and are committed to following our Health and Safety Plans. These plans and the specific procedures they detail are our best hope for our students, staff, and faculty to remain healthy during the pandemic.
We remind everyone to monitor your wellbeing on a daily basis and stay out of school buildings if you are showing any signs of infection. Information on the signs of infection can be found at www.lancasterctc.edu/healthscreening.
The specific recommendations from the PA Departments of Education and of Health specifically state “When a case of COVID-19 is identified in a school setting, public health staff from DOH or the County or Municipal Health Department (CMHD) will work with school administrators to provide guidance and advice related to cleaning and disinfecting, contact tracing and quarantine recommendations, and closing certain areas of the school or the entire school building if necessary. When an entire school is recommended to close, lengths of closure time will vary by level of community transmission and number of cases. This allows public health staff the necessary time to complete case investigations and contact tracing, and to provide schools with other appropriate public health advice like cleaning and disinfecting.”
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Be well and be safe.
Sincerely,
Dr. Stuart Savin
Administrative Director
Lancaster County Career & Technology Center
Leave a Reply