College Heights superintendent says students will change seats every 14 minutes to avoid COVID-19 quarantine requirements

COVID-19 numbers have been low at College Heights Christian School in Joplin, Superintendent Dan Decker told parents in a quarterly update e-mail sent Friday.

One problem schools have faced since the beginning of the pandemic is the requirement that students who come into close contact with someone who has contracted COVID-19 have to go under quarantine for 14 days.

Close contact is defined as being within six feet of an infected person for 15 minutes.

Decker told parents he and his administrative team had devised a creative method of getting around that requirement- high school and middle school  students would change seats every 14 minutes.

Even better, Decker said, he ran the idea past the Joplin Health Department, which had no problem with the plan and did not think he and his team were contemplating anything dishonest or trying to do an end-around to avoid quarantines.

So the policy is going into effect at the College Heights secondary schools.

The text of Decker's quarterly update is printed below:

Hello College Heights Christian School Families,

I hope this week has been a good one for each of you. I appreciate all of your help, grace, and mercy as we navigate through this time. This has been a busy, but good week, in Cougar Country with just a few of our student families having to be quarantined for COVID-19. Otherwise activities have gone on as normal, which has been nice for a change. 

With the closing of the first quarter, we have been looking at our close contact procedures for COVID quarantine in the event of a positive case. 

According to regulations, the only item that matters in determining close contact is whether or not a student is within six feet for more than fifteen minutes. Students still have to quarantine despite having masks on or not if they are within six feet of one another for more than fifteen minutes. 

Therefore, as an administrative team we brainstormed having students change seats every fourteen minutes throughout the course of a class period. That would meet the health department standard for close contact and not have to quarantine as many of our secondary students (Middle School and High School). 

During discussion, the question came up concerning whether this would be seen as a dishonest way of getting around the regulation. Therefore, I spoke with the Health Department to see what their interpretation of this process would be. 

When speaking with our representative from the Joplin Health Department, they explained that moving students periodically throughout the class period would meet the requirement of not having to quarantine students due to the six feet fifteen minute rule. 

I asked if by doing so would they consider us attempting to do something dishonest or trying to skirt around the regulations and their response was no. They also thought it was a good idea to try this method to see if we could cut down on the number of students we are having to quarantine for close contact in our Middle and High School, and asked that I share our results with them. 

Right now this is going to be something that we are making a trial run at in our secondary school. If it is successful and we don’t see an increase in positive cases or spread, we will update it in the materials we have posted on the website under our COVID plan. 

Working together as a team, we are going to get through this! 

Have a Blessed Weekend, enjoy the beautiful weather, and we look forward to seeing your students on Monday. 

In His Service, 

Dan Decker 

Superintendent 

College Heights Christian School