COVID Information

Dear Families,

The Iowa Department of Education and Iowa Department of Public Health jointly released guidance for schools and local public health agencies regarding public reporting of COVID-19 cases, instituting limitations in accordance with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
The new guidance states:

Schools that have no cases can report zero cases
Schools with 5 or fewer cases should not provide a specific count but can confirm there are cases within the school population
Schools with counts of 6 or more cases can release specific case counts
No other demographic identifiers should be included in the school-level release

We are committed to safety and transparency while maintaining student privacy. We will adapt our reporting procedures to meet the new guidelines outlined above. Beginning immediately, we will report the number of active positive cases in our school each day. This report will be available in chart format on our school website. We will no longer be sending a letter home to notify families of each case. We will also no longer report out grade level or any other demographic information.
The new reporting guidelines allow our school to report in the following way:

If there are 0 cases, the number “0” will be used.
If there are 1-5 cases, “**” will be used.
If there are 6 or more cases, the actual number of cases will be used.

Thank you for your support of our school. Please continue to pray for all those affected and an end to this virus. As always, please contact me with any questions at 641-394-2865 or via email at ccarlton@stjoseph-nh.pvt.k12.ia.us.

Yours in Christ,

Christina Carlton

Current active COVID cases:

St. Joseph Community School currently have "***" active COVID cases.