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Guidance for Keeping Students Home (COVID)

The health and safety of our school community is extremely important to the Snoqualmie Valley School District.  Each student’s health status has a direct relation to their ability to profit from educational experiences. Preventing the spread of illness within the school setting is our best tool to keep the students healthy and our school community members play a vital role in this. 

To ensure a student's well-being and prevent the spread of illness, students should remain at home if they exhibit any of the following symptoms:

Specific symptoms for which a student should remain at home and when they would be considered improved for return are:

  • FEVER:  A student, who has had a fever of 100.4 degrees F. or over, should stay home for at least 24 hours after fever has passed without the use of fever-reducing medications.  
  • VOMITING:  Students who have vomited should remain home for at least 12-24 hours from the last episode and have been hungry for and kept down 2 normal meals.
  • DIARRHEA:  Students who have loose/liquid stool should remain home until normal bowel patterns return.
  • SECRETIONS:  students with significant runny noses and/or profuse cough need to remain home until the secretions have diminished to a controllable/containable level. 
  • GENERAL ACHES/PAINS:  If your student has any physical discomforts (i.e.: stomach ache, headache, sore throat, etc.), carefully assess your student.  Your student should stay home if they have any of the above accompanying symptoms or are too uncomfortable to be able to concentrate in class. 

This is a brief sampling of common reasons students should be kept home.  There are many more contagious conditions which would merit exclusion.  Please use caution when assessing your student’s health status in the morning and do not send them if you are uncertain of what is going on with them.  Students with respiratory virus symptoms that are not better explained by another cause (such as allergies) or test positive for COVID-19 or another respiratory virus, should follow King County Public Health and CDC guidance for staying home and when to return to activities including school.

It is important for you to know that under the terms of the school medication law, medications can NOT be at school unless the proper paperwork, including a licensed healthcare provider signed medication order, is in place.  This also applies to over the counter medications. 

Our first concern is for the well being of each student.  If there are concerns regarding your student's health status please contact your school nurse.  Thank you for supporting our efforts to keep all our students healthy!