Continental School District No. 39

 

 

The safety and health of your child at school is our top priority.

COVID-19 (also commonly known as Coronavirus) could be seen as the worst threat to public health in the past 100 years. It is highly contagious and continues to spread quickly in Arizona. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that even when strict precautions are in place, some people still get sick.

Our job is to work with you to help keep children and their educators healthy. We also want you to clearly understand the risks and what we’re doing about them, so you can make the best decision for your family.

Earlier this year, Arizona enacted A.R.S. § 12-515 Arizona Immunity Statute, “Emergency declaration for a public health pandemic; immunity from liability; burden of proof; presumption; applicability; definitions.” This law becomes effective on September 29, 2021. The law provides broad immunity for persons or providers, including school districts, that act in “good faith” to protect students and others from injury from the public health pandemic. The immunity applies to civil actions alleging an act or omission by a school district that occurred on or after March 11, 2020, and that relate to the pandemic.

Under the new law, a school district will be presumed to act in good faith if it “adopted and implemented reasonable policies related to the pandemic.” The immunity applies unless an injured party proves by “clear and convincing evidence” that the district's action or failure to act was due to its willful misconduct or gross negligence. This imposes a more stringent burden on injured parties to prove a civil claim than the common “preponderance of the evidence” standard.

Although Continental School District is taking many steps to protect your child from the spread of COVID-19 (as outlined in our Continuity of Operations Plan/Mitigation Plan which can be accessed from our website), it is impossible to reduce the risk to zero. As an example, a child may contract COVID-19 outside of school, show no symptoms at all, and unintentionally infect a classmate.

By signing the waiver, you’re agreeing not to make a legal claim against the district if your child gets sick. It’s another way of acknowledging that no matter how hard we try, we cannot control every environmental variable.

By signing the waiver, you’re also agreeing that when your child leaves home to attend class in-person, they are not sick, and especially, that they are not running a fever. You are also agreeing to keep your child at home if they show any of these symptoms:

• Fever of 100.4°F or higher
• Chills
• Cough
• Shortness of breath or difficulty     breathing
• Fatigue
• Muscle or body aches
• Headache
• New loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Congestion or runny nose
• Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
• Any other symptom of illness, whether or not you believe it’s related to COVID-19