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HOOVER – Hoover City Schools announced that the district is canceling all school-related trips to locations where a state of emergency has been declared due to the spread of COVID-19 or coronavirus.

“At this time, the cancellation or postponement is for school trips scheduled in March to areas in which a state of emergency has been declared,” read a letter from the school system. “Currently for HCS, these areas include New York, Florida and Kentucky.”

Hoover Superintendent of Education Kathy Murphy said at the regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, March 10, that school system leaders met earlier that day with officials from the Alabama Board of Education, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, Alabama Department of Public Health and others.

Murphy said she learned that the new standard for a student returning to school is 72 hours fever-free with no medication, instead of 24 hours.

“Certainly if our students are running a fever, please keep them home, and certainly for our adults the same,” she said.

Murphy encouraged schools staff, students and parents to use common-sense steps to avoid the spreading of the virus, such as washing hands, covering sneezes and coughs, and maintaining a distance from other people.

“I appreciated us noting that maybe shaking hands right now is not the thing to do—maybe it’s the fist bump or the elbow touch or the ankles or whatever,” Murphy said.

The HCS Board of Education will continue to update the advisory, which can be found online along with other resources at HooverCitySchools.net., as circumstances warrant.

“We are tracking the information that is coming from the Centers for Disease Control,” Murphy said. “I just want our community and you the Board to know that we are tracking that.”