Someone — either a student, teacher or other staff member — at Middlesex Middle School recently tested positive for COVID-19, according to an email from schools Superintendent Alan Addley.
School nurses have told that person and 11 others who are considered to have been in close contact with him or her (apparently at the school and possibly also in a school bus, since family members are mentioned separately) to quarantine for 14 days, Addley said in the Wednesday evening email.
Family members “have also been instructed to self-quarantine and get tested,” Addley wrote in the email, sent out as a letter through the email account of Alicia Casucci, director of nursing for the schools (but stating that it was from Addley).
The individual who tested positive was last at Middlesex Middle School on Thursday, Sept. 17. On Tuesday, Sept. 22, the school was informed about the positive test result.
“We continue to share information about confirmed cases of COVID-19 in order to be transparent and communicative about cases and to protect the health and safety of students and staff.”
But Addley didn’t share the information via the email until 6:45 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 23 — the day after the district was notified about the person’s positive COVID-19 test result.
Nor, it appears, did Addley share the information with the public beyond staff and parents of students at the middle school. It wasn’t until late Thursday that the Darien Times published an article about the incident, citing Addley’s then day-old email as the source of the information. Darien Patch published an article citing the Darien Times as the source of its information.
Here’s the full text of Addley’s email on Thursday to parents and staff at the school, (as forwarded to Darienite.com by a parent):
Dear Families & Staff:
On Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, the Darien Public Schools COVID Response Team was notified that a member of our school community has tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19).
The affected individual has been instructed to remain home in self-isolation for 10 days and has been provided with additional instructions to follow prior to returning to school.
Family members have also been instructed to self-quarantine and get tested. The last day the individual was at Middlesex Middle School was Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020.
The details of the case have been reviewed with the Connecticut State Department of Public Health, the Darien Health Department and our district medical advisor and thorough contact tracing has been completed.
All 11 individuals who are considered to be a “close contact” have been contacted by the Middlesex nursing staff and provided with instructions to quarantine for 14 days and to consult with their health provider about next steps and testing.
Your continued cooperation with monitoring for symptoms and practicing preventative measures (COVID-19 Symptoms and Prevention Measures) is greatly appreciated.
We continue to share information about confirmed cases of COVID-19 in order to be transparent and communicative about cases and to protect the health and safety of students and staff.
Thank you for your ongoing collaborative efforts in helping to protect the well-being of our greater community.
Sincerely,
Dr. Alan Addley
Superintendent
Editor’s note: Darienite (usually) changes minor details of documents here published as “full text” in order to keep published articles in uniform style. This almost always involves paragraph breaks, capitalization and changing some numbers written out to numerals (for instance, in the document above, “eleven” to “11”). If words are added, they’re in brackets (“[ ]”); anything removed is noted with “[…]”.