Another positive coronavirus case recorded at Morgantown High School on Friday will likely involve a number of teachers and several students by the time the contact tracing is done, the district said.
“This one is going to be complicated,” Mon School Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said.
That’s due to the sprawling nature of the MHS campus on Wilson Avenue — and that the student who was diagnosed had been in three separate classrooms, meaning monitoring for those teachers, plus any other students present.
However, he said, there is a positive — behind the positive.
The infected student, Campbell said, hadn’t been in the building since last Monday.
That lag, he said, cuts down the probability of an extended exposure or outbreak that could close the school.
In the meantime, he said, the district’s specially designated cleaning team for the pandemic will launch a total cleaning and disinfecting mission today.
When the bell rings this Monday, the superintendent said, MHS will be open for classes under the staggered, hybrid-learning model.
“Given that the student hadn’t been to school, we feel pretty comfortable with that,” he said.
The county ended the week with back-to-back cases affecting other groups of students.
Three students from Clay-Battelle Middle/High School are currently self-quarantining after a teacher there tested positive.
Nine more students of Suncrest Middle taking part in a county volleyball tournament ended their week the same way.
They had interacted with another student from a private school who also came down with COVID, and were directed by the district and county health to isolate out of precaution.
Friday’s announcement again puts the glare of uncertainty on MHS, whose Faculty Senate was dubious about any return to in-person learning this term — however modified — owing to the unpredictability of the pandemic.
The senate over the summer drafted a letter of no confidence to the district and its elected board of education members, saying it just wasn’t safe to go.
For the district’s part, Campbell said earlier the staggered learning schedule will stay through Jan. 20 because of the pandemic particulars.
The district also wanted to be able to step around Thanksgiving and Christmas, two holiday breaks that traditionally bring family and friends shoulder-to-shoulder, under the same roof.
Any such gatherings, the superintendent said, now have the potential of morphing into super-spreader events.
In the meantime, he said, the district will continue to conform to mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and every other measure out to there to help quell the spread.
That’s why he appreciates the main hallway effort by the people tasked with keeping school buildings clean — from the daily frontline workers to the on-call COVID team.
“Our custodians did a great job before all this,” he said.
“Now their work is even more vital.”
Morgantown Area News
'Wednesday, December 18, 2024'
