Dear Parents and Students,

I hope you are all well and are enjoying the start of the school year.

The purpose of this email is to provide some information as to what to expect when we have a COVID case identified at Cashmere High School.

Please note the information and guidelines I receive regarding COVID-19 are constantly evolving and I can only comment on the information that I have currently.

The biggest challenge for us will be the process of identifying close contacts of a confirmed case. As you can appreciate, in a secondary school with specialist subjects and students moving between classes, we will have a number of students who could be considered close contacts.

If we have an identified COVID case: 

• The Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Health will notify me of the case. 
• Our identification team will work to support the student and family and then work with the MOE to identify close contacts.
• Once we have confirmed the close contacts, parents/caregivers will becontacted via email with information regarding isolation. The current isolation requirements are that they must self-isolate for 10 days under RED phase oneor 7 days under RED phase two and three. Information regarding testing and online learning will be provided in the email.
• Staff who are close contacts will also be required to isolate.

Please understand that if we are dealing with a number of cases we will not have the ability to manage large volumes of incoming communication. We simply do not have the resourcing for this situation. However, we will do our best to respond.

In the event of a large number of identified COVID cases, we may have a large number of teaching staff isolating. Due to the specialisation of our subjects we may not be able to continue to staff our school in the usual format. In this situation we may need to move to online learning. More information will be provided if necessary and in due course.

A reminder that if students are feeling unwell or displaying the following symptoms they need to stay at home.

• new or worsening cough
• sneezing and runny nose
• fever
• temporary loss of smell or altered sense of taste
• sore throat

I wish I could tell you that this will all run perfectly and according to plan, however this is an evolving situation, and we will need to respond with a degree of flexibility and pragmatism.

Please understand that we will do our best and that our response will be guided by the wellbeing of our students, staff and wider community.

With every best wish,

Joe Eccleton
Principal

Article added: Thursday 03 February 2022