Ninety students in the district have tested positive for COVID the new school year thus far.
And 316 of their classmates are currently out on quarantine.
Twelve staffers have also received positive diagnoses, including one in the district’s central office. Another three staff workers across the district are also isolating at home today as a precaution.
The cumulative totals are through last Friday, and they impact 17 schools in the district, Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said Tuesday.
They also include Early Head Start, the maintenance and transportation offices and the district central office, as said.
While they are mostly single-digit, they’re still adding up, with 18 positive cases at Morgantown High, to go with the 10 classmates who came down with COVID at Mason-Dixon Elementary on the western end of the county.
Add that to the quarantine numbers, with 53 students sitting out as a precaution at Brookhaven Elementary and the 51 at Mountainview Elementary.
The aforementioned Mason-Dixon has 47 students currently on quarantine and four other schools have 20 students, or better, also sitting out due to the possible exposure.
“I worry about every single one,” Campbell said of the positive cases, “but this is the way of the world for us right now.”
Weekly case reports may been viewed on the district’s website at https://boe.mono.k12.wv.us/.
In the meantime, keeping those numbers in perspective helps, Campbell said.
Even, he said, with the above worries.
The district has a mask mandate for all grades and is practicing pandemic protocols.
And, none of the cases to date have been defined as an outbreak, meaning a string of cases directly related to a classroom or football practice for example.
There are those matters of pandemic pragmatism and relativity also, he said.
Morgantown High, he said, has a student body of 1,800 – to go with its 18 positive cases among those who attend class there.
In contrast, though, Mason-Dixon is a smaller school that has already gone through outbreaks last spring and a temporary return to remote learning as the positive cases sorted out.
“We’re seeing cases but we’re not seeing internal spread,” the superintendent said.
“We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”
That includes planning for additional vaccinations this fall, including booster shots for the family members of students, once the inoculation becomes available.
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