August 28, 2020
Thank you for your dedication to giving our students a first-class education despite the many challenges of COVID-19.
I am writing to give you guidance on the process if one of your students tests positive for the virus.
For entirely remote classes, with no face-to-face component, it is the student’s responsibility to notify you if they test positive. We will remind students that they should do that in order to work with you on how they can best meet course requirements.
For classes that meet entirely or partially face-to-face, you will be notified by Faculty Excellence about any positive cases among students in your class. Faculty Excellence will be provided this information by Student Health Services.
For face-to-face classes, please keep in mind this guidance:
- Please work with the student on how they can continue to meet course requirements while not attending class in person. How you achieve that is up to you.
- Please note that it is not your responsibility — and is in fact a violation of a student’s privacy — to share information about students’ health with others. If a student informs you that they are positive, please tell them to call UCF’s COVID Line at 407-823-2509 as soon as possible if they have not already done so.
- Student Health Services has a large contact tracing team that becomes involved when we learn of a positive case. The contact tracers are responsible for notifying anyone else in your class of concerns about exposure and whether they should self-quarantine.
- According to the Florida Department of Health, with the precautions we have taken, risk of transmission within classrooms is considered very low, and if a student or faculty member becomes COVID positive, quarantine of the entire class would not be recommended.
- You may not decide on your own to move a class to a remote format. The contact tracers will determine whether any steps are necessary for your class. For example, if contact tracers see a pattern of positive tests in your class, they may determine that the class needs to meet remotely for a period of time. Any decisions about changing the format of a class, even temporarily, must be approved by Academic Affairs.
- Our classrooms are cleaned and disinfected daily with a fogger that kills the virus upon contact. Additional cleaning of your classrooms will not be necessary.
- If multiple students reach out to you with positive COVID-19 tests and you have concerns about continuing your class, call UCF’s COVID Line at 407-823-2509 as soon as possible and await further direction.
If you have any questions regarding the guidance above, I encourage you to reach out to Jana Jasinski, vice provost for Faculty Excellence, at jana.jasinski@ucf.edu.
I know this is not the semester any of us expected. Thank you for everything you do for our students.
Michael D. Johnson, Ph.D.
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs