Forestville Friday Updates!

Keeping Our Schools Safe: Response to Cases at School

FCPS has a dashboard that documents all positive cases at schools.

FCPS’ goal is to keep students learning in-person all year. We are doing our part by implementing layered prevention strategies and will work with FCHD to address issues if they arise.

Every FCPS student and family can do their part by wearing masks, getting vaccinated when they are eligible, practicing healthy hygiene, and staying home when sick. 

Notifications, pausing, quarantining, and isolating are tools we use to keep schools safe when a positive COVID-19 case is reported. Understanding the difference between the three scenarios can help families be prepared. FCPS uses these  procedures to respond to a COVID positive case at school


Covid-19 Symptoms

This is just a friendly reminder that there are very stringent protocols in place for “COVID-19 like” symptoms in school.  We appreciate your extra vigilance this year in making sure that all of our students and staff are safe. 

If your child is experiencing any of these in the morning before school, please keep them at home.  Otherwise, they will be sent to the Care Room and sent home and may not return without a clearance from a medical professional.

  • Fever greater than 100.4
  • A new cough (not due to another health condition)
  • Headache (not due to another health condition, hunger, thirst, stress or injury)
  • A new sore throat (not related to another health condition)
  • Abdominal Pain (unrelated to hunger, constipation, injury or stress)
  • Nausea/Vomiting/Diarrhea (not associated with a chronic gastrointestinal condition)
  • Runny nose/Congestion (unrelated to allergies or another health condition)
  • New loss of taste, smell or appetite
  • Fatigue (more than normal or sudden onset)
  • New muscle pain (unrelated to a health condition or P.E./Recess)

If your child has seasonal allergies or a health condition, please let our School Health Aide, Ms. Choudhary, know. She can be reached at 703-404-6010. As always please feel free to reach out to Ms. Choudhary with any questions.


Cafeteria Updates

Cafe Photo

To help with spreading out our students, at needed times in the cafeteria, we have made a couple of adjustments to lunch time.

We have a couple of classes that are now eating their lunch in the main hallway outside of the cafeteria. Long rectangular tables have been provided for students along with table shields. There are also a couple of classes that are eating their lunch in the SACC room, with tables and shields provided as well. This has allowed us to spread other classes throughout the cafeteria to provide more space between students.

Additionally, we have received our cafeteria tri-fold table shields that we are utilizing for the cafeteria tables. These shields help to section off students to help make things safer for our students and staff in the cafeteria.   


Parents of Walkers

Please help our staff members out at dismissal time by waiting for a staff member to release your child to you once you have waited your turn in line to pick up your child. As a school, the safety of our children is a major priority and we want to make sure that we have each child properly placed with their parent/guardian each day.   

Even if your child is in the walker line to be released inside the cafeteria, please do not ask your child to come out before they have been released by a staff member to do so.

We thank you in advance for adhering to this policy to help keep all our students as safe as possible.


Dismissal Reminders

  • Please do not park in the Fire Lane by the school dumpsters. This area should not be used by parents as a pickup area for their children. Doing so is a violation of Virginia law.
  • Please do not park across the street from the school on the curb side of Utterback Store Road and have your child cross the street to their car. This is a safety hazard for many reasons. One, our school is not assigned a crossing guard to help children cross the street, so doing so on their own, presents safety risks. This also causes issues for a school bus that needs to turn onto the next street, and they cannot do so because of the cars that are stopping alongside Utterback Store Road.
  • Additionally, our neighbors that live on Loran Road, right across from the school, have requested us to remind our parent community that they should not be parking on Loran Road to pick up their children.

Reporting Attendance and Changes in Transportation Information

Please use the following links to report necessary attendance information to the school and any transportation changes that may take place on a given day:

Please report absences, late arrivals, early dismissals by 9AM at this link https://forestvillees.fcps.edu/about/attendance-form and include specific reasons for absences.

For changes in transportation, submit the form by 11AM at this link https://forestvillees.fcps.edu/early-dismissal-or-change-transportation-form

Absences that are not reported will be marked as unexcused.