Designated Seating, Contact Tracing in Classrooms, and Faculty Notifications

Designated seating in classes is needed to assist in contact tracing. In a hybrid course with alternating attendance days, a seating chart will be needed for each group of students meeting face-to-face. For studios, labs and other specialized spaces in which students might not have specified seats, then the lab schedule and location chart would be useful. 

Designated Seating Charts

  • Lecture-based courses  
    • Create a designated seating chart with students' first and last names.  If possible, consider allowing students to choose their seat to respect student’s different learning styles and needs.
    • Fillable seating charts for all university classrooms and some college classrooms are available here (it is best to open in Acrobat or Chrome).  Please use the fillable forms when available; this consistency of process helps the contact tracing team.    
    • Changing the seating arrangement as the semester progresses is OK, but please keep accurate information. 
  • Laboratory and studio courses
    • Create a designated seating chart if possible. Keep notes each class period about the general activities and interactions between students that would aid in contact tracing if needed.
    • When possible, faculty should try to design instructional time to minimize the interactions between participants. For instance, if there is more than one lab group, try to minimize interactions between groups.
  • A new Cybox folder has been created for each instructor of record; the folder name is the instructor’s netid and the instructor should have received an email regarding the folder creation.  

Attendance Records

  • While taking attendance is not required, if faculty have attendance records, they should provide them if there is a positive case identified in the classroom. If attendance records are not available, then the case investigator will ask specific students if they attended in-person class/lab/studio on a particular day. We encourage faculty to communicate to students that attendance records should not be perceived as punitive for grading situations, since through the Cyclones Care initiative, students are instructed to stay home if they are having symptoms.
     

When a Class Participant Tests Positive or is Identified as a Close Contact:

  • The case investigators will ask the student who tested positive (among other questions) what class(es) they have attended during the period of interest (the period of interest starts 2 days prior to onset of symptoms; or if asymptomatic, 2 days prior to the date the positive test was collected). 
  • The instructor of record will receive an email from Classroom Notifications informing that there was a positive case in their class without identifying the person.  This email will ask that that any seating charts or other notes are uploaded to their CyBox folder, and to verify that any information currently there is accurate.  For instance, if the seating chart is not valid for the day of interest because of team based learning arrangements, please note that in your Cybox.
  • The health team will provide the Dean of Students office with those students who have tested positive or have been identified as a close contact. The Dean of Students will then send an email to the instructor of record, their department chair, the student and their advisor informing them that the student is not able to attend in person classes. 
  • Unlike in the Fall, this email will not have the date that the student can return to class.  This change was made to reduce confusion and encourage communication between students and faculty.  Students will be advised of the date they can end isolation or quarantine and faculty may ask the student the appropriate documentation confirming the length of the isolation or quarantine period, but due to various factors that date may change.  Additional information on the Dean of Student’s notifications can be found here.