Unionville-Chadds Ford Superintendent John Sanville closed the middle and high schools Monday night, putting into action a pandemic action plan that the school board approved at its work session the same night.

According to a note Sanville posted on the district’s Website Monday night, Patton Middle School and Unionville High School were ordered closed on Tuesday so “cleaning crews will pay special attention to high-touch areas and use our Protexus spray system to disinfect classrooms and common areas.

”The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District has been advised that a UCFSD student was indirectly exposed to COVID-19 during a visit to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia facility in King of Prussia on March 6, 2020,” Sanville wrote. “As a precaution, the student and their family are under quarantine for 14 days.”

The two schools will be closed for “deep cleaning,” and the student and their family are quarantined for 14 days, Sanville wrote in the note.

“The Chester County Health Department has advised us that the individual poses no risk of transmission since they are not showing any symptoms at this time; however we feel we need to be vigilant and proactive in this matter,” according to Sanville.

Earlier Monday, Sanville sent a letter to families announcing that the district was “canceling all student and staff travel to urban areas and lower Montgomery County … also restricting travel to lower Montgomery County at this time because, with more than one case of COVID-19, it is considered a focus area of infection.”

The “pandemic phase level action plan” approved by the board has four phases, ranging from Phase 0 to Phase 3. Phase 0 assumes no confirmed cases in Pennsylvania and calls for initiating the pandemic preparedness plan, among other things. The third phase, assuming widespread, confirmed cases in Pennsylvania or a confirmed case in the school district, calls for school buildings to be closed and for teachers to start distance learning.

 “What this framework provides is a little bit of guidance to our community and certainly guidance to our administrative team as to how we react as conditions change, and they will,” U-CF Superintendent Dr. John Sanville said at Monday’s work session. “The reality is, and this is my fear, that as more testing is done, you’re going to have more positive cases.”

The pandemic action plan also covers when the district could consider postponing extracurricular activities, athletics, district events, and more.

To read Sanville’s two notes, and to see the pandemic action plan that the board reviewed Monday, go to the district’s Website at ucfsd.org.