How to Avoid Quarantine in a School Setting

"The CDC also recommends universal masking in schools. This combination of masking and quarantine guidelines, if enacted,  significantly reduce the need to send students home for extended periods, limiting academic disruptions.

If the student is not vaccinated, but wearing a mask and at least three feet from the infected student, the exposed student does not have to be quarantined. But if students were less than three feet apart in a classroom, less than six feet apart elsewhere in school, or either student was unmasked, quarantining is necessary, according to the CDC guidelines. 

Finally, it is also possible for a student to be exposed to COVID by an adult. In that case, an unvaccinated student would be quarantined if they had come within six feet of the infected adult for 15 minutes or more, regardless of mask use.

A “quarantined” individual could return to class 10 days after being exposed so long as they showed no symptoms of COVID. A student or staff member could come back even sooner — seven days after exposure — if they test negative for COVID and have no symptoms.

An infected individual should only return to school, the CDC says, once 10 days have passed since their first symptoms and they’ve gone 24 hours without a fever and their “other symptoms of COVID-19 are improving."