AAPS: Superintendent Jeanice Swift offers update on COVID, more

Hello AAPS Students and Staff, Parents and Community,

As we wrap the third week of this 2021-2022 school year, our students, teachers, staff and leaders continue to learn and grow together in our classrooms.  This community effort to sustain a successful school opening this fall involves commitment and focus on everyone’s part. Many thanks to all in the AAPS for your impressive work to consistently implement COVID health and safety strategies in school and in daily life in our community.

Summary / Highlights of this Message (1-2 minute read)

Full Text of this Message 

As we move through this fall, we will continue to hold the health and safety of our students and staff, parents and community as our top priority. We will faithfully practice AAPS COVID mitigation strategies in our schools. We will continue to deploy proven tools: vaccination and universal masking indoors, improved ventilation and outdoor experiences integrated through the school day.

AAPS COVID Update

Today, the AAPS COVID Health and Safety Protocols for Fall 2021 were revised in several areas.  These revisions are based on the following:

  • Close tracking of protocol implementation and cases during the first three weeks of school, with a focus on monitoring for any school-based transmission.
  • New guidance released from the WCHD and MDHHS.
  • Changes approved by the WCHD regarding specific issues of concern, such as the type of testing needed for different protocols.

Protocol updates include changes to the daily student prescreen questionnaire and when to keep ill children home from school, managing students who become ill at school, and quarantine procedures.

There is ongoing concern about community-based transmission leading to infected individuals coming to school. The COVID-19 Response Team will continue to track cases and school exposures carefully to determine if the Super Six mitigation strategies hold up against the number of cases entering school buildings.

What parents/guardians can do: 

  • Ensure every family member who can be vaccinated is vaccinated
  • Avoid time indoors with unvaccinated people
  • Wear a mask in indoor public spaces
  • Keep your student home with any symptoms and seek testing as needed.

AAPS District COVID-19 Dashboard

In addition to the communication steps that occur at the school when a COVID case is identified, the district AAPS dashboard will be updated each Friday with COVID-19 cases reported through the end of the school day each Thursday. COVID-19 cases will be updated by school, level and other groups to consistently update the AAPS community of COVID-19 cases and exposure in our schools.

Information about the AAPS COVID-19 Case Notification Process may be read here. Today’s AAPS COVID dashboard, which includes COVID case data reflected from this past week, is here. 

Congratulations to AAPS National Merit Semi-Finalists

Congratulations to the 56 AAPS students that were named National Merit Semi-Finalists this week. We recognize the effort it takes to master the range of subject areas tested, and we applaud these Semi-Finalists for their excellent achievement. We also want to recognize and thank our AAPS teachers at all grade levels, who are instrumental in preparing our students for this competition, as well as our parents for their support of their young people throughout their education. We are fortunate to live in a community that values and celebrates academic achievement.

In a COVID era, students, teachers and staff learning and growing together in schools represent a tremendous step forward.  In the steps we take each day, we demonstrate our care and commitment to our children, to each other, to our Ann Arbor community and to our shared future. Truly, we are stronger when we work together.

Thank you for your continued support of our students and of the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

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