Stay in school with Samo's 2021-2022 COVID-19 protocols
Samo is up and running after a year of distance learning, and students have returned to the newly-renovated campus. However, the emerging COVID-19 Delta variant has presented yet another threat to students’ education, being more than two times more contagious than previous ones. Samo has kept old safety measures, like daily health screens, and implemented new ones, such as weekly COVID-19 tests, to help keep its students and staff safe.
Every morning, students complete the Lintelio health screen to be allowed onto the campus. The site asks questions regarding symptoms, contact to infected people and tracing, showing students a green (all-clear) or red (stay home) screen. This protocol has had a mixed reception at Samo, such as by students Sofie Stern (’24) and Simone Ashford (’25).
“I think Lintelio is a good resource because it can keep others and yourself safe… and it will help ensure safety in our school and community,” Stern said.
Be that as it may, this brings up the question of honesty while filling out the forms.
“Lintelio is useless because people can lie on it. After a year of COVID, we all know the symptoms, so it’s not like we wouldn’t know we might have COVID,” Ashford said.
To prevent screenshot sharing, security guards use IDs to confirm that a student’s name matches the one on the health screen, according to Marae Cruce, I House Principal. Even so, students can memorize the “right” answers on the form and show false green screens, potentially endangering others.
“We would hope there is integrity amongst the student body since the purpose of the screening is to keep us all safe. None of us are safe until all of us are safe,” Cruce said.
On Sept. 1, Samo started requiring weekly COVID-19 tests for its students. They have the option of taking the test on campus, where they self-administer a cotton swab under the supervision of trained professionals from DoctorNow and the Malibu Medical Group. Students can also provide negative results from PCR tests outside of school instead. Students who did not test at Samo or provide the alternative test were forced to stay home starting Sept. 22.
Students are tested on either Wednesdays, Thursdays or Fridays with their math, social studies, or English classes. About 500 to 1,000 students are tested daily, and the collected samples are sent to a lab in Northridge. Results are collected approximately 24 to 48 hours later, according to the SMMUSD website.
In the case of a positive result, the infected student would be notified and isolated. Symptomatic positive cases may only return to school after 10 days of quarantine and if they have been fever free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medicine. Positive cases showing no symptoms can return after 10 days of quarantine. In both cases, students also require clearance from the school nurse.
Exposed students would be notified too. If unvaccinated, the exposed person would quarantine for 10 days, or return after day seven of quarantine if they show a negative test result from day five or after. Fully vaccinated students can continue attending school, but are recommended to get another COVID-19 test. All exposed students should monitor their symptoms for 14 days. More information can be found under Health Services on the SMMUSD website.
Samo has followed all requirements set by the CDC and the state. Adhering to these approved protocols doesn’t mean everything will run smoothly—in fact, there’s already been positive cases recorded on the SMMUSD COVID-19 Dashboard— but they will ensure a relatively safe buffer that will allow students to continue learning as normally as possible.
