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WHEELING -- Changes in Centers for Disease Control policy have Ohio County Schools adjusting its COVID protocol.
The newest change is that students and staff who have direct contact with a COVID positive person while at school no longer have to quarantine, according to Amy Minch, attendance director for Ohio County Schools.
"If the contact happens in school, we will deal with it," she explained.
Contact outside the school falls under the guideline discretion of the Ohio County Health Department.
"(CDC) research showed students who were contacts at school were less likely to have COVID than if they were contacts at home," she explained. "We no longer have to follow those guidelines.
"In-school contacts, we don't quarantine anymore. We still contact parents, and watch for symptoms."
And those infected with the virus now won't have to quarantine as long, Minch added.
The quarantine time -- which at one time was as long as 15 days -- is now just five days, she said.
This week, Ohio County Schools Assistant Superintendent Rick Jones informed board of education members that there would be "a little bit of change in the course of action" pertaining to the school district's policy.
In late December, the board passed a motion allowing students and their parents to decide whether or not they should wear masks in the classroom. Students and staff still were required to wear masks when the county was designated orange or red on the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources COVID-19 alert map, but during recent weeks Ohio County has been listed as yellow or green.
The move by the board in December also set quarantining time at 10 days, and now Ohio County Schools has received word from the State Department of Education that the CDC is recommending five days.
"They changed their recommendations, and the recommendations of the state were less restrictive than what our compromise came up with," Jones told board members. "We do not want to have any policies that are more restrictive than what the state is recommending.
"To sum it up, there is no mask protocol in our schools. No masks (are required). There is contact tracing to the extent only that we inform parents. All those things are over, according to the state guidance," he said.