Dear Smithfield Staff and Families,
This 47th edition of the Return to School report includes our weekly report on COVID cases, town data, new graduation guidance, summer contact tracing, and testing/vaccinations.
A Weekly Report on COVID Cases
Gallagher Middle School had one new case while our other schools reported no new cases this week. This brings our total number of cases to 361 since the start of the school year.
New Graduation Guidance
RIDOH is removing the 3 feet of physical distancing requirement between students and guests for outdoor graduations. The RIDOH team recommends that schools space out guests as they can, but are not requiring 3 feet of spacing.
Summer Contact Tracing
RIDOH is recommending that the process doesn’t change for contact tracing, and schools are required to continue to support contact tracing throughout the summer.
Testing and Vaccinations
The Smithfield VFW testing site will close on June 30th. If testing is needed, families should go on the RIDOH website as many changes are being proposed. Also, RI's first drive-thru vaccination clinic opened in Smithfield at Fidelity last weekend and the next clinic will be held there on Saturday, June 26 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Town Data
In the past five weeks, new COVID cases in Smithfield dropped from 32 to 24 to 12 then to less than five for the past 2 weeks. This corresponds to a daily rate of less than 1 new case per 21,650 residents, or less than 5 per 100,000. This data is available at https://bit.ly/2PxCgDM.
Sincerely,
Judy Paolucci, Superintendent