The Renton School District sent an email to parents Friday night on the districts changes to the COVID19 protocols. Superintendent Damien Pattenaude stated “I feel it is critical that we do all we can to keep our schools open for in-person learning. I commit to continue working with Public Health, engaging with state leaders, reviewing our data each day, listening to feedback, and making the very best decisions possible. If any temporary closures of classrooms or schools are needed, we will notify families as quickly as possible.”

The email comes on the heels of Wednesday’s heated school board meeting where parents, staff and teachers voiced concern over remote learning and an update to the isolation and quarantine recommendations align with the Washington State  Department of Health guidance.

This guidance now applies to school districts:

• Quarantine guidance (for close contacts of someone who tested positive for COVID):
  • Students, teachers, staff who come into close contact with someone with COVID, and are asymptomatic, do not need to quarantine if they are in any one of the following groups:
    • Ages 18+ who have received the vaccine plus booster, and additional primary shots for some immunocompromised people
    • Ages 5-17 years and completed the primary series of COVID vaccines
    • Had confirmed COVID within the last 90 days
  • Everyone else quarantines for 5 days after contact. If no symptoms develop, person may return to school with negative test result taken no sooner than day 5 post-exposure.
  • If an individual is not tested, they will quarantine for 10 days.
• Isolation guidance (for COVID positive):
  • No symptoms: isolate for 5 days
  • With symptoms: end isolation after 24 hours without fever or fever-reducing medication, and improvement in other symptoms, no sooner than 5 days after positive test.

The change in guidance is opposed by the Renton Education Association (teachers union), however details were not provided by the union who met Thursday night. Information on

The districts COVID-19 dashboard is back up and running after the district website crashed with an issue related to the vendor who overs the website. Accurate numbers are delayed 1-2 days due to the large number of positive cases district wide.

King County COVID-19 dashboard continues to show a large increase. Within just the city of Renton, cases have increased to over 15,000 and within the Renton School District boundaries (includes Skyway and West Hill) they are over 18,000.

COVID Testing
Every school has both rapid antigen tests and PCR tests to provide COVID tests to students and staff who are symptomatic or are close contacts and are on site at a school, and our student athletes. Additional testing for staff and families will be supported at our central office. See testing website for more information. Please complete the universal COVID testing consent form in Skyward Family Access.

COVID Notifications
We will continue to notify families if their student is a close contact of someone who tested positive for COVID. Using new guidance, if students are seated at least 3 feet apart and consistently, correctly wearing masks in a classroom, they are not considered close contacts. Additionally, we will no longer send school-wide email updates to families regarding cases at a school. Instead, information will be displayed on the district COVID Dashboard.

Are we prepared if we must shift to remote learning?
Should a classroom or school need to shift to remote instruction, here are the considerations:

• Preschool – Identifying students who need devices
• K-3 students take assigned devices from their classroom.
• 4-12 students are assigned their own device.
• Families without internet access can request a hotspot for home using our internet support request form.

Masks
Continue to wear a snug-fitting mask. We are providing optional KN95 masks for staff and working to provide optional KN95 masks for students in addition to cloth masks.