Vaccinations 

All students, faculty, staff, and law school visitors are required to be vaccinated and to have had an initial booster when eligible, unless granted an exception on religious or medical grounds. 

Masking

Albany Law School is a mask friendly community.  Masks are generally not required for vaccinated individuals. However, individual faculty members, and individual law school departments, have the right to require masks in their classrooms or offices.  

Individuals who received religious or medical exemptions to the vaccine requirement must wear masks when inside law school buildings. 

As always, we support the choice of individuals to wear masks and expect members of our community to respect local masking rules.

In addition, the Law School reserves the right to reinstate a mask mandate should public health conditions change within the law school or in the Albany region.

Testing

The Law School will no longer conduct testing. Free rapid tests are available through the U.S. government:  https://www.covid.gov/tests and from your health insurance company: https://www.cms.gov/how-to-get-your-at-home-OTC-COVID-19-test-for-free

Students and employees with symptoms should take a rapid test at home or go to their medical provider. 

Pre-Arrival Testing

All community members are asked to self-test the day before returning to campus from summer break. If you test negative, it is not necessary to upload results to share my health. Testing will be on an honor system.

Please do not come to campus if you test positive.  If you do test positive, please upload your results to ShareMyHealth and await instructions from HR.

Isolation

Albany Law will continue to require more protective measures than that required by the CDC for individuals who test positive for COVID-19.  Positive individuals must remain off campus and isolate for 10 days, or until they can produce a negative antigen test taken after five or more days from the onset of symptoms or the date of a positive test. The isolation period runs from the onset of symptoms or the date of a positive test result, whichever is earlier.  

Employees and students who test positive should upload results to ShareMyHealth and notify hr@albanylaw.edu.  Students in isolation will be provided with recordings of missed classes.

COVID-19 Student Absences

Students unable to attend class due to COVID will have access to class recordings.

If a student is unable to attend class due to COVID-19:

• Contact the professor
• Fill out a Report of COVID-Related Absence & Class Recording(s) Request - this will automatically be sent to Katie Palmieri at kpalm@albanylaw.edu. 
• Students watching class recordings should not check themselves in through Qwickly.
• When a student returns to campus they should fill out Report of Absence form – this will automatically be sent to the Academic Affairs Office. Absences due to COVID will be excused and students will be counted present for those days.

For All Faculty, Staff, and Students

If you feel sick, have symptoms, or have tested positive:

• Leave (or don’t come to) campus.
• Take a rapid test at home or get tested at a testing facility.
• Seek medical care, if necessary.
• Self-isolate until you have test results.
• If you feel ill but new test results are negative, stay home until you feel better.
• If your test results remain positive:
  • upload your results on Share My Health and contact Human Resources at hr@albanylaw.edu
  • seek medical care, if necessary
  • Students - see the “COVID-19 Student Absences” section
  • Faculty/Staff - contact your supervisor, team members, and/or students directly about your absence and give/receive further instructions.

Contact tracing

The Law School will no longer conduct contact tracing.  Individuals who test positive for COVID-19 are asked to notify any individual with whom they had close contact about possible exposure.  Individuals who need help identifying or reaching out to contacts should reach out to HR at hr@albanylaw.edu.

Individuals notified of close contact with a person who tests positive should monitor for symptoms and self-test 3-5 days after exposure.  Those with positive household members or significant exposure may choose to isolate and work remotely or access recordings of classes. 

Visitors & Events With Guests

Visitors and invited off-campus guests are welcome on campus for events, classes, and programs. All visitors to campus must adhere to current COVID-19 guidelines at Albany Law School. At this time, any one coming to campus must be fully vaccinated and have at least one eligible booster shot or have proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 24 hours of arrival. It is the responsibility of the organizer of any event to inform invited guests of this policy. Questions regarding current COVID-19 policies can be directed to the Public Health and Safety Team, however there is no advance event approval needed.

Further changes

Please know that we continue to monitor the pandemic closely and consult with outside public health advisors. Should circumstances around the pandemic change in any significant way, we are prepared to adjust our protocols accordingly.