COVID-19 has again called on Mason Dixon Elementary School.
The positive diagnosis Friday of a substitute teacher put an entire class on quarantine for the next two weeks for safety, Monongalia Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said.
“We thought we were going to get through our week back without a case,” he said, “and here we are.”
Elementary and middle school students returned to their buildings Tuesday for five-day-a-week, in-person learning, at the directive of the state Board of Education.
The inaugural week was also a shortened one.
Heavy downpours over the weekend led to localized flooding and a rainout of Monday’s planned return for elementary school.
Middle-schoolers went back Wednesday and high schoolers hit their respective hallways this Monday.
Look for as much as 80% of the student population to physically be back in school once the final enrollment is tabulated.
Meanwhile, Campbell said no other students or staffers were affected by the diagnosis at the small, rural school in Blacksville, on the western end of the county.
The school normally houses about 300 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.
Friday’s incident wasn’t the first time COVID has clouded Mason Dixon.
The school went on remote learning for two weeks last month after four students contracted the virus at a birthday party.
Caution was the key then, the superintendent said, as the quartet of cases impacted three grades.
Shifting to distance learning was a move to quell community spread, the district said then, since it wasn’t immediately known how many students had attended the party.
That Blacksville is a close-knit community with multi-generations of families who are also next-door neighbors added to the urgency.
Add a burst of speed to Friday’s measure of caution, the superintendent said.
“We had our COVID cleaning crew out there before the end of the school day,” he said.
Even with the pandemic, Monday, Campbell said, will be like a first day of school in many ways for the county’s students in grades 9-12 electing to return to their buildings.
“It will be good to have them back,” he said.
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