What steps should I take if I am interested in requesting to work 100% remote?
First send your request in email to your supervisor. They will consider whether your job can be done 100% remote. The supervisor will make a decision whether any adjustments may be made to your schedule.
What if I am requesting to work remote because of a medical condition and requesting medical accommodation?
This request for accommodation requires a doctor statement. When it is received HR will work with your supervisor to see if a medical accommodation may be considered. If the supervisor does not believe that accomodation can be made it will not be approved. If the accommodation is approved Martha Frazier will send out an approval letter with the Expectations for Working Remote
Martha Frazier is the Human Resources Specialist handling and processing Remote Work requests, Family Medical Leave, First Family Coronavirus leave, extended leave requests and Worker Compensation cases.
If I have symptoms and will not pass the screenings what should I do?
Stay home and contact your Supervisor. The supervisor will contact Marlena Harvey, Human Resources Specialist or Martha Frazier. Human Resources Specialist. Your supervisor will write an email to the CCSD COVID Task Force and someone one from the team will contact you.
Who is on the COVID Task Force?
David Griego, Amanda Sutherland, Christie Brown, Stephanie Crawford, Marlena Harvey, Martha Frazier and Margaret Trocheck.
It is a Federal Law First Family Coronavirus Response Act. FFCRA, for up to two weeks emergency paid leave related to COVID situations such as positive cases and close contact causing employees to quarantine. It is also available when an employee is symptomatic. The link below will bring you to the specifics on the website.
If I live with a high-risk individual may I request 100% remote work?
You may request it from your supervisor and HR but the district is required only to make reasonable accommodations and it may not be approved in your chain of command. The district is committed to working with every employee to get the best outcome for the students, employees and school district. These are considered on a case by case basis.
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS:
Confirmed case: A person who has tested positive for COVID-19 by laboratory testing***
***Confirmatory laboratory tests include Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) or antigen testing from a respiratory specimen. Note that a positive serology, IgM or IgG is not considered a confirmatory test.
COVID-like Symptoms: Fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of smell or taste, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea.
- Infectious period: Time during which an infected person is contagious and most likely to spread disease to others. If a student, staff or volunteer was at school during their infectious period, all of their close contacts must be identified and quarantined.
Infectious Period - Symptomatic
- For a confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 case, the infectious period starts 2 days prior to the illness onset date and continues for 10 days* after illness onsets. *as long as they have been fever free for at least 24 hours and symptoms have resolved or improved.
- For a confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 case with severe illness or severe immunosuppression, the infectious period starts 2 days prior to illness onset date and is extended to 20 days after illness onset date.
- Asymptomatic confirmed case: A person who has tested positive for COVID-19 by laboratory testing but did not experience any symptoms of illness (listed above) within 10 days of the test.
- For a confirmed asymptomatic COVID-19 case, the infectious period starts 2 days prior to the specimen collection date and continues for 10 days after.
- If a confirmed asymptomatic COVID-19 case has severe immunosuppression, at least 20 days should have passed since the date of first positive specimen collected.
Infectious Period – Severe Illness
- Severe illness: Severe illness is indicated by hospitalization in an intensive care unit with or without mechanical ventilation.
- Severe immunosuppression: Severe immunosuppression includes being on chemotherapy for cancer, untreated HIV infection with CD4 T lymphocyte count <200, combined primary immunodeficiency disorder, and receipt of prednisone >20 mg/day for more than 14 days.
- Other factors, such as advanced age, diabetes mellitus, or end-stage renal disease, may pose a much lower degree of immunocompromise and may not clearly affect decisions about duration of isolation.
- Isolation: Isolation keeps someone who is sick or tested positive for COVID-19 without symptoms away from others, by staying home from school, work and other activities while infectious.
- Isolation should last at least 10 days after the onset of symptoms, and until you are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications and have experienced improvement of symptoms.
- For people who never had symptoms, the isolation period is 10 days after the date their first positive test was collected.
- If someone has a severe illness or severe immunosuppression, the isolation period should be extended to 20 days.
- A negative test is not recommended to determine when to end the isolation period. When in doubt, the New Mexico Department of Health should be consulted.
Quarantine
Quarantine keeps someone who was in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 away from others they should stay home from school, work and other activities for 14 days after their last exposure due to the incubation period being 2-14 days.
- The exposed contact should be tested for the virus that causes COVID-19 no sooner than 3 days following the last exposure to a confirmed case and ideally between 7-10 days.
- If the close contact has a positive result, isolation should be implemented as described above.
Close Contact:
Someone who has an exposure of 3 minutes or longer within 6 feet of a confirmed COVID-19 case during the case’s infectious period with or without a mask or cloth-face covering -OR- was in the same class or cohort as a confirmed COVID-19 case. The Cohort includes classroom and buses.
Cohorting:
- The practice of keeping groups of students, and staff if possible, together over the course of the school day. The goal of cohorting is to limit exposures to only those within the same cohort. This practice may help reduce the spread of COVID-19 by
- Limiting exposure to an individual with COVID-19 to one particular cohort and not posing a broad risk to the rest of the school
- Reducing contact with shared surfaces
- Facilitating more efficient contact tracing in the event of a positive case
- Allowing for targeted quarantine, testing and/or isolation of a single cohort, instead of school-wide measures in the event of positive case or cluster of cases
1. Should students or staff be tested every time they have a runny nose?
- Students or school staff with mild non-specific COVID-19 symptoms, such as headache, runny nose, diarrhea, myalgias, etc., should be tested initially for COVID-19 and be sent home to initiate isolation until the results come back. A negative test result will discontinue the isolation and the student or staff should be allowed to return to school provided that their symptoms do not interfere with their ability to work at school.
- The individual should then be monitored for changes in symptoms, if they experience no significant changes, then they should not be required to be tested again.
- Some level of conservative caution is required with an illness that often presents with mild nonspecific symptoms. However, school staff, ideally a school nurse, in consultation with the New Mexico Department of Health’s School Health Advocates, should be able to make judgment calls based on severity of symptoms, chronicity of symptoms, and changes from baseline.
2. What if the symptoms are chronic?
- Students or school staff with chronic allergic rhinitis, or chronic asthma or other chronic, non-infectious respiratory symptoms should consult their primary care provider (PCP), if their PCP agrees the current symptoms do not differ from the patient’s baseline, then, the individual being evaluated is not required to be tested for COVID-19.
- If the individual has a change in symptoms from their baseline as assessed either by the person themselves (if staff), a parent/guardian or school nurse (if student) or a physician, then that individual should be tested for COVID-19 and be placed in isolation until the results come back. A negative result will discontinue the isolation.
3. What if a student or staff has been tested in the past, how long will a negative test be good for?
- Students or staff that have tested negative for COVID-19 in the past two weeks, should NOT be tested again in the presence of chronic symptoms that have not changed in a meaningful way during that interval. If those symptoms were to change from their baseline, then they should be tested and begin home isolation.
Quarantine OR Isolate
- A. People who have tested positive for COVID-19 should isolate.
- B. Any person who has been in close contact with a person with positive COVID-19 should quarantine.
- C. Anyone who has been in close contact with someone who was exposed to COVID-19 does not need to quarantine. Human Resources FAQ
- For a confirmed asymptomatic COVID-19 case, the infectious period starts 2 days prior to the specimen collection date and continues for 10 days after.
- If a confirmed asymptomatic COVID-19 case has severe immunosuppression, at least 20 days should have passed since the date of first positive specimen collected.