It has been a bit of a roller coaster the past two weeks as we have seen more staff and students needing to quarantine for either positive cases (4 unrelated) or being close contacts of someone who has tested positive. I want to thank everyone for being forthcoming as we have conducted tracing and have been communicating with Carver County Public Health.
Please be vigilant in monitoring your child for Covid symptoms and if they have any, please keep them home from school. Here is the MDH decision making tree.
We have had a few positive COVID cases at the elementary school this week in both staff and students which have resulted in several dozen students/staff needing to quarantine. Parents and caregivers, thank you for your help and cooperation during the process. These cases underpin the need for families to have a plan in place in case of an unexpected turn of events.
Until recently, school districts understood that if COVID-19 case counts in the county reached 30 cases per 10,000 residents, secondary schools would move into distance learning. That understanding was clarified in a communication from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) last week that stated school districts must work with their regional support teams to also consider local data and better understand how community rates of COVID-19 are impacting local schools.
This week, the COVID-19 case counts in Carver County were reported at 25 cases per 10,000 residents. I expect that number to be higher later next week and continue rising. We have connected with health officials from the state and from our regional support team to look at our local data. As of today we have had 7 positive cases out of 341 students/staff needing to either quarantine or get tested because they were showing symptoms.
This data does not suggest prevalent community spread in our schools, but we are trending in the wrong direction. I want parents and staff to know the Central team looks at all the data and will take a “scalpel” approach to managing our schools rather than a one size fits all. We do need your help in this by having a family plan if your child needs to be picked up and to keep students home if they are ill.
Finally, one of the biggest struggles has been having adequate staffing and supervision when our teachers and paraeducators need to be quarantined themselves or for their children. If you are interested in subbing as a paraeducator or teacher, please contact Lynn Peterson at lpeterson@isd108.org
