The School Board seeks to provide a healthy educational environment for both students and staff. It is the Board's intent to ensure that any student or member of the staff who contracts a communicable disease that is not communicated through casual contact may have his/her status in the Corporation examined by appropriately licensed medical personnel and that the rights of both the affected individual and those of other staff members and students will be acknowledged and respected.

For purposes of this policy, "noncasual-contact communicable disease" shall include:

In its effort to assist in the prevention and control of communicable diseases of any kind, the Board has established policies on Immunization, Hygienic Management, and Control of Casual-Contact Communicable Diseases. The purpose of this policy is to protect the health and safety of the students, Corporation personnel, and the community at large, from the spread of the above-mentioned diseases.

The Board seeks to keep students and staff members in school unless there is definitive evidence to warrant exclusion. When the Superintendent learns that a student or Corporation employee may be infected with a noncasual-contact communicable disease, the Superintendent shall consult with the infected person's physician and/or the Clark County Health Department to determine if the initial evidence warrants exclusion.

If the evidence is not sufficient to justify exclusion, the person shall remain in his/her current school environment.

If the County Health Officer determines the evidence indicates the person should be excluded from the school environment, the person shall be temporarily excluded.

The Corporation shall provide an alternative education program for any student removed from the school setting as a consequence of the health officer's decision. Such a program shall be in accordance with this Board's policy and administrative guidelines on Homebound Instruction.

When the Superintendent learns that an affected student is eligible for services under the IDEA and the student's physician or the County Health Department Officer believes the student must be removed from school, the Superintendent will direct the Students' Case Conference Committee to design an appropriate out of school program for the student.

The rights of any affected student, as well as those of any affected staff member, shall be protected in accordance with Federal and State laws on privacy, and confidentiality. In addition, the exclusion of any staff member from the Corporation by the County Health Officer's decision will be done in accord with relevant sections of Indiana Statutes concerning sick leave.

Further, it is the Board's policy that all students and staff members should maintain normal contact with an affected student or staff member whose continued presence in the school setting has been determined by this process.

The Board directs the Superintendent to develop an educational program in accordance with Indiana Statute that will ensure proper instruction of students, professional staff, and support staff, on the principal means by which noncasual-contact communicable diseases are transmitted, as well as how they are not transmitted, and the more effective methods for restricting and/or preventing these diseases.

The Superintendent shall include in this, those educational materials which advocate prevention through abstinence.

20 U.S.C. 1232(g)
I.C. 20-34-3-17, 16-41-9, 20-34-3-9