It’s hard to miss the toll of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant are taking here on campus as students, teachers, cafeteria workers, and others are missing time due to a positive test. 

And with so many students missing time, there’s been some confusion about what is expected.

Principal Ashley Rainwater sent out an email Wednesday evening reminding students and families of the district’s protocols for COVID-19.

Students should stay home if they have any COVID-19 symptoms, but sometimes symptoms may show up during the school day which leads a student to visit the nurse.

“I assess their symptoms; I start going through the whole list of all of the potential COVID symptoms: cough, congestion, headache, sore throat, nausea, body aches, those among many other things,” school nurse Lindsay McDavid said. “And we’ll check their temperatures, lots of times kids don’t have temperatures, and sometimes they do. If they have two or more of any of those symptoms we contact their parents and they’re sent home.”

According to the Frisco ISD protocols, if a student tests positive for COVID-19, they must quarantine for 10 days from symptom onset, or a positive test with no symptoms, regardless of a doctor’s order that says a student may return to school after five days. 

The Frisco ISD protocols also state that a student who tested positive may not return to school before their 10-day quarantine period even if they subsequently received a negative test.

Two years into this pandemic, some people are ready to move on, but McDavid encourages people to keep following the CDC protocols.

“Viruses are smart, they’re a lot smarter than us and we don’t know what’s going to come next. I think we need to keep our guard up on COVID, the pandemic, and whatever’s going to be coming next, because there are always people who aren’t as healthy as the average person or even healthier than the average person,” McDavid said. “There are people out there that need everyone to protect them. Babies, older people, anyone who’s immunocompromised.”