Friday, November 13, 2020
Good afternoon,

We are excited and proud to share with you that we have formed a new advisory Task Force to assist the Edgewood Board of Trustees and our school administration on matters related to COVID-19.

Our eight-person Task Force includes four medical professionals, all of whom are highly respected in their fields. They are joined by members of our school administration and our board.  All members of the Task Force have close connections to Edgewood, either as a parent, alum, or both.

Members of the EHS COVID Mitigation Task Force are:

• Dr. David Andes, Infectious Disease, COVID Research, UW, parent of 3 EHS grads and current student
• Dr. Bill Hartman, Anesthesiology, COVID Vaccine Clinical Trials, UW, parent of current and future students
• Sue Richards, BSN, EHS school nurse, parent/foster parent of 4 EHS grads 
• Dr. Jantina Vonk, Psychiatry, Rock County Public Health, parent of EHS grad
• Marykay Zimbrick, attorney, EHS Board Chair, parent of 3 EHS grads
• Jane Clark, attorney, EHS board member, parent of EHS grad, current and future students
• Mike Elliott, President of EHS, EHS grad (’77), parent of 3 EHS grads
• Beth Steffen, Principal of EHS, parent of current student

We are very excited and grateful to have these individuals serve on the Task Force. We are particularly thankful to have the expertise of the medical professionals available to us.  We believe their advice and guidance will have a significantly positive impact on the work we do. We appreciate their willingness to share their time and expertise with us at this most crucial time in our school’s history.

Among the initial assignments for the Task Force will be to re-assess and update the metrics that will serve as the basis for our decision-making in the weeks and months ahead. We will seek their guidance in identifying and assessing the many factors to be considered as COVID impacts our Edgewood community.

Meanwhile, in other COVID-related news, we have shared notifications about positive cases this week.  We are required by Dane County Public Health to send these notifications to limit public health risk and exposure because we do have faculty, staff and students in the building on a limited basis.    

As of today we have recorded the following:

EDGEWOOD HIGH SCHOOL:

	Students	Staff
Positive cases:	9	2
Close Contacts:	22	7
Recovered Past Positive:	10	2

DANE COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH:
14-day average number of daily positive cases: 379
14-day average % of daily positive tests: 12.6%

Beth Steffen, Principal; Mike Elliott, President; Marykay Zimbrick, Board Chair