A student attending limited classes at North Elementary School has tested positive for COVID-19, Monongalia County Schools announced Thursday.
Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. didn’t reveal the student’s name or circumstances, citing privacy concerns for the family.
“I can’t really comment on much more than that,” he said.
“I can tell you that we’ve got all the measures in place, and that we’re doing what we need to do.”
Those measures, the superintendent said, include closing the building today for a total cleaning by the district’s specially assembled COVID disinfecting team.
Teachers and other staff who had been in the building will do their lesson plans and other work remotely today as well, he said.
Which also includes any of the students who had been receiving face-to-face instruction since Monday.
Campbell said he didn’t know how many other people the student may have come into contact with at the school on Chestnut Ridge Road, as trace testing had just begun.
North Elementary is a pocket of diversity for Morgantown and the county.
Many of its student body have international backgrounds, and there are more than 40 languages represented at the school, other than English.
Monday was the day some 75 students with serious cognitive and physical challenges went back to school across the county, as per a provision by the state Department of Education.
The impairments of the students were deemed too pronounced for the remote instruction required by Mon’s then-showing of red on the County Alert Map.
Counting North Elementary, the above students are in classes in 17 of the district’s 18 schools.
Earlier this week, it was also announced that an employee at Morgantown High School — whose faculty senate has expressed no confidence in the return to in-person learning this fall — had also tested positive over the weekend.
Both the West Virginia Education Association and the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, two leading unions, have also said the same.
Gold standard
However, that’s also in the face of the 70% of Mon’s parents who told the district last month they want their children in school. The county faded in a little closer to that goal Thursday when it turned orange on the alert map.
That now means that Mon, for the first time since the beginning of school Sept. 8, is now below the
25 cases per 100,000 mark on the metric.
Campbell attributed the change in hue to the state’s reassessment of WVU’s positive case numbers, and how they should be factored in with the community at large.
Gov. Jim Justice announced the day before that university students who have tested positive, and are currently in quarantine at Arnold Hall, will now count cumulatively as one positive case against the county’s color-coded designation.
The county map updates at 5 p.m. Saturday, and Mon is now one color away from gold — which allows a return to school and extracurricular activities, including football games.
Mon parents were alerted Wednesday evening that classes would stay online next week.
Waiting for an antidote
But, no matter the color on the map, the coronavirus remains constant for now, the superintendent said.
Which means, he said, simply coexisting with it.
Campbell announced that employees who now get tested — but are asymptomatic — can remain on the job, pending their test results.
“That’s if they haven’t had contact with anybody with COVID-19, and they aren’t feeling ill, but they just want to do it for their peace of mind,” he said.
“Everybody in our system has to self-report anyway, and if someone gets flagged, that’s a whole different thing.”
The district, he said, upgraded its policy with the blessing of the county health department.
What happens, however, when other cases are reported in other schools?
“Well, that’s an inevitability,” he said.
So are all those measures undertaken by the county, he said, when all of Mon’s students get to return to their school
buildings.
“We’re doing all the right things to keep people safe. Until we get a vaccine, we’re going to have positive cases.”
