CCSD Message: Opening of School Update

On behalf of the Superintendent, please be advised that, based on the Governor’s decision through Executive Order to end the Public Health State of Emergency on June 30, 2021, and the significant improvement of the state of public health, we are returning to pre-pandemic school operations for the 2021-22 school year, which begins Aug. 2.  More back-to-school information will be shared with our families in the July edition of the CCSD Connections newsletter on July 22.

CCSD will not issue mandated precautionary quarantines to students or staff for close contact at school with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.  When Principals are informed of a positive case among students or staff, they will notify any affected staff and email a notification to the parents of students in the affected classes notifying them of the positive case and the important need to monitor for symptoms, but no precautionary quarantines will be required.  This is the same State-mandated practice CCSD follows for other serious communicable diseases.  

Students or staff who test positive for COVID-19 will continue to follow Department of Public Health guidelines, which require you to stay home for 10 days since symptoms first appeared and be fever-free, without use of fever-reducing medications, for 24 hours before returning to school.  

Staff and students are not required to wear masks in CCSD schools or offices at any time, but can choose to wear them.  CCSD will continue to provide disposable masks to individuals who might request them. 

COVID-19 vaccinations are not required for employees or students, but are encouraged and recommended.  The Cherokee County Health Department and many local healthcare providers have COVID-19 vaccines readily available; there are no plans to host COVID-19 vaccination events at CCSD schools or offices.

Schools will hold open house/walk through events the last week of July; the schedule is posted online at https://bit.ly/CCSDopen.  School supply lists also have been posted for all schools on the CCSD website at https://bit.ly/CCSDsupplies. 

Schools will return to their normal operating procedures for lunchtime and class bell schedules; and, assemblies and field trips will resume.  Special events open to parents and families will resume, and parent volunteers will be permitted to work throughout the school, including in classrooms.

CCSD will continue to invest in increased cleaning and sanitizing at all school locations and will continue to provide surface and hand sanitizer spray to classrooms.  These measures, coupled with the significant investment last school year to upgrade ventilation filters and to replace water fountains with water bottle filling stations, appear to have made an improvement in overall student and staff health.