By Emily Boorstein | The Marietta Daily Journal |
Marietta — Interim Superintendent Chris Ragsdale says students will soon be coming home with letters detailing the Cobb School District’s plans to avoid an Ebola outbreak.
He said Angela Huff, the district’s chief of staff, was working on the memo Thursday night.
“Angela’s going to be working with (school board attorney Clem Doyle) to make sure all the I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed, and then that will be going out to the schools,” Ragsdale said Thursday night.
Pending clearance from Doyle, Huff said the district is looking at requiring new students coming from west African countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to be tested for the virus before they are admitted into schools. The policy would not affect current students.
Huff said the district has been working closely with Cobb and Douglas Public Health, the Georgia Department of Public Health and the Georgia Department of Education in drafting the policy.
She said once the policy is green-lighted, letters will go out to school administrators today and students should be bringing them home Monday.
Ragsdale said it’s important to have protocol in place ahead of time “so we’re able to deal with it if we have to, and we hope that we don’t.”
The threat of the virus, which the World Health Organization says is on pace to top 4,500 deaths in western Africa by the end of the week, has already caused schools in two states to cancel classes.
A Liberian man who traveled to Dallas later died from the virus in the U.S., and two Dallas nurses who had contact with him were recently diagnosed, according to the Associated Press. One of the nurses, Amber Vinson, flew to and from Cleveland over the weekend. Officials have said Vinson didn’t show symptoms during her Ohio visit.
The AP reports a Cleveland-area school canceled classes in two buildings after learning a staff member might have flown on the same Frontier Airlines plane, though not the same flight, as Vinson. Three school campuses in Belton, Texas, were closed because two students traveled on the same flight as her. The campuses and school buses were being disinfected.