January 21, 2022
Dear Smithfield Staff and Families,
This 20th edition of the Back to School report includes our weekly report on COVID cases, COVID data dashboard, vaccination clinic ,free rapid test kits, and town data.
A Weekly Report on COVID Cases
This past week was again extremely busy for our COVID team. We have had an additional 127 confirmed COVID cases in one week. This brings our total since our school year began to 714 cases. There were 24 cases identified at SHS, 31 cases identified at Gallagher, 26 cases at Pleasant View Elementary, 32 cases at LaPerche Elementary and 13 cases at Old County Road Elementary. There was also 1 case at our administration building.
COVID Data Dashboard for Schools
The Rhode Island Department of Health and the Rhode Island Department of Education have collaborated on a data dashboard to provide Covid related data and information for public PreK - 12 schools. You can access this dashboard and see town specific data at PreK - 12 Covid Data Dashboard.
COVID Vaccination Clinic for Ages 5 - 11 Years
The town of Smithfield will be offering an additional Pfizer vaccination clinic for our 5 - 11 year old community members. It will be held on Saturday, January 29th from 10am - 2pm at Old County Road School. Please register at OCRS Covid Vaccination Clinic.
Free Rapid COVID Test Kits
Next week, the school department will be distributing one test kit per staff member and per student. We will send a short form home with students so that parents can indicate if they want a test kit. Please do not take a kit if you do not plan to use the kit. These kits can give you peace of mind and let you know if you need to isolate to keep others safe. If you test positive with a home kit, we ask that you follow up with a confirmatory in-person test at a testing site.
Town Data
The number of weekly new cases in Smithfield for the week ending January 15th fell slightly to 548 cases, from 590 the week prior. The number of cases in the state has also slightly decreased to 32,097 cases for that same week. The town rate corresponds to a weekly rate of 2490 new cases per 100,000 residents, which is still considered a high rate of transmission as classified by the CDC. This data is available at https://bit.ly/2PxCgDM.
Sincerely,
Judy Paolucci, Superintendent