COVID-19 Protocols

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Greater Lowell Technical High School is committed to providing a healthy and safe learning environment for all members of our school community. We will continue to follow a layered approach to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 which includes maintaining good hand hygiene and good cleaning practices, as well as, maintaining our ventilation and HVAC System and staying home when sick. It is with all of us working together that we can keep our school community safe.

Everyone needs to do their part in the following:

• • Avoid close contact with people who are sick
  • Minimize touching your eyes, nose and mouth
  • Stay home when you are sick
  • Cough or sneeze into a tissue or into your elbow
  • Wash your hands often with soap and water or use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol

Checking for Symptoms

Students and staff should continue to monitor their health for symptoms of COVID-19 symptoms.  The list below does not include all possible symptoms. Symptoms may change with new COVID-19 variants and can vary depending on vaccination status. CDC will continue to update this list as they learn more.

✓ Fever (100.0 Fahrenheit or higher), chills, or shaking chills
✓ Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
✓ New loss of taste or smell
✓ Muscle aches or body aches
✓ Cough (not due to other known cause, such as chronic cough)
✓ Sore throat (when in combination with other symptoms)
✓ Headache when in combination with other symptoms
✓ Nausea, vomiting (when in combination with other symptoms)
✓ Fatigue, when in combination with other symptoms
✓ Nasal congestion or runny nose (not due to other known causes, such as allergies) when in combination with other symptoms

Parents /guardians should not send their children to school if they are exhibiting COVID- 19 symptoms and staff should not report to work. At this time, we are not offering testing in school.  The student absence should be reported to the Main Office. Any absence from school will require a doctor’s note in order to be excused.  Staff should contact the Director of Human Resources and follow standard absence practices.

Medical response protocols

Students or staff exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 (whether vaccinated or non-vaccinated) should not report to school. Parents/guardians should contact the Main Office at (978) 441-4418 or (978) 441-4812 and staff should contact the Director of Human Resources (x4892).

If a student or a staff member is exhibiting any of these symptoms, the individual should get tested (A rapid antigen test is preferred to a PCR test in most situations) for COVID-19 before returning to school or should self-isolate for a minimum of 5 days and until 24 hours have passed with no fever (without taking fever-reducing medications) and have also experienced improvement in other symptoms. 

In addition, following the five-day isolation period, the student/staff member should mask for five additional days when around others. If the student/staff tests negative on day five or later, the student/staff does not need to mask. If a medical professional makes an alternative diagnosis for COVID-19 like symptoms, the individual may use this recommendation (e.g. for influenza or strep pharyngitis) in lieu of a PCR test or antigen test.

*Note: To count days for isolation, Day 0 is the first day of symptoms OR the day the positive test was taken, whichever is earlier.