Every day, schools in the Guilderland Central School District are busy monitoring developments in the health offices, tracking attendance and keeping in touch with representatives from the Albany County Department of Health so that the district is prepared to respond to any confirmed cases of COVID-19. To date, there have been two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the district both at Altamont Elementary School.
Whenever there is a confirmed case of COVID-19 linked to one of our schools (through a student or staff member, or an approved visitor), the district will coordinate its response with the Albany County Department of Health (ACDOH). The school district will work with ACDOH on contact tracing and a notice will be sent out districtwide with the information provided by the county health department.
In addition, all schools in New York State, including GCSD, are required to submit a daily report to the state of any confirmed cases of COVID-19 linked to a school. The COVID-19 Report Card is available to the public on the New York State Department of Health website and includes daily case statistics from schools throughout the state. While the dashboard is an important tool for identifying trends regionally and statewide, please know that any information regarding COVID-19 in the Guilderland schools will be shared with you directly and will not be delayed by these additional reporting requirements.
On the state dashboard, it is important to note that for every school district, the state includes a number that is an estimate of “Lab Reported Positives based on Residential Address” as part of its school COVID Report Card. This estimate does not reflect the number of cases confirmed in any GCSD school. Please remember that there are students within the district’s residential area that are not in the school buildings, such as students that are homeschooled, remote-only learners, attend private schools or other schools. Individual school data on the dashboard is listed separately below this estimated number.