Monongalia County’s school district didn’t get an Easter break from COVID on Friday.
While schools were closed for the holiday, it was announced that two students at Suncrest Elementary tested positive for the coronavirus, Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said.
The students are sisters in different grades, Campbell said, and their diagnoses from the day before resulted in the combined quarantines of 44 classmates, three teachers and a substitute teacher.
Another Morgantown High student who shared a bus ride with the sisters was also quarantined as a precaution.
In the meantime, Campbell said he just hopes people don’t put all their eggs in one pandemic basket for Easter Sunday, as it were.
“My biggest concern over any holiday break is that people do get together,” he said.
“And that means you might have more a chance of getting and spreading the coronavirus if you aren’t careful.”
That’s because not everyone has been inoculated against the virus, he said.
And that’s because the inclination might be to disregard some of the protocols among those who have received their doses.
“You can’t let your guard down,” the superintendent said.
Which, in the case of Mon Schools, also means rolling up more sleeves for more vaccines, he said.
Some 300 doses, mainly second shots of the Moderna vaccine, were administered last week to Mon teachers and other employees, he said.
That clinic at Morgantown High School, the superintendent said, also included selected family members of those employees.
If you were 18 or older and living under the same roof, you were in, he said.
Other clinics for employees are their families are currently scheduled for April 9 and April 23, Campbell said, with plans to start vaccinating students over the age of 16 at additional venues, once the pandemic paperwork is cleared.
In the meantime, socially distanced proms and commencement exercises are all set for the county’s three high schools, he said.
After that comes the last day of school and summer vacation for everyone else.
This summer will be heavy on academic enrichment programs for the younger grades, the superintendent said.
Even with new concerns of COVID variants in the region Campbell said he “is anticipating” a big turnout of in-person learners for the 2021-22 academic year.
About 7,500 of Mon’s 12,000 students are currently in their actually classrooms, the superintendent said.
That’s around 60 percent, and Campbell predicts even better attendance grades come fall, provided COVID doesn’t become too unpredictable.
“I think we’ll have most of our kids back.”
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