FARMINGTON — In a letter to the community Wednesday, Regional School Unit 9 Superintendent Tina Meserve announced that a staff member has tested positive for COVID-19 after traveling out of state.

The letter stated that the staff member followed all requirements by the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention and RSU 9 for out-of-state travel. They include a 14 day self-quarantine or documentation of a negative COVID-19 test.

The letter assured the community that the staff member has not been at any schools or had any recent contact with students or other staff members.

Meserve said in the letter:  “We are confident there is no additional risk to our employees.”

In a phone interview, Meserve said RSU 9 would follow the Department of Education’s guidelines for notifying the public about future positive COVID-19 cases, which should be released by the DOE on Thursday.

“They have a reporting form and they’re going to tell us exactly what we need to do, but our goal is to make sure that we build trust with the community, that we’re going to inform them when there’s information that they need to know and that we’ll do it swiftly, as soon as we have knowledge of any issues,” Meserve said. “That was just an opportunity for us to put that in place and make sure that we’re ready to communicate as soon as we needed to.”

RSU 9 will refer to CDC procedures for admitting staff members back to work who have tested positive for COVID-19. The CDC states that a person is safe to return to work 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19.

The CDC also states that if a person continues to display symptoms and/or has a weakened immune system after 10 days from the date of a positive test, repeated testing may be necessary.

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