FNESU, ENOSBURG SCHOOLS IMPACTED BY AN UPTICK IN COVID CASES
By Gregory J. Lamoureux
County Courier
ENOSBURG FALLS: Northeast Supervisory Union superintendent Lynn Cota announced on social media, several cases of COVID-19 at Enosburg’s three schools.
A total of seven people tested positive for COVID-19 during the Thanksgiving break, according to Cota. She did not elaborate on whether those cases are attributed to students or staff members.
“The presence of the COVID-19 virus within the six towns of Franklin Northeast has been on the rise,” Cota said as she began her announcement, “luckily, three of those individual people were not at school during their infectious period.”
Cota said that the four other cases that resulted in having a COVID positive case within the school system triggered contact tracing to all close contacts within the school, and those close contacts have been notified.
Of the three cases that were not in the school system during their infectious period, Cota said two could be attributed to the Montgomery Elementary School, and one to the Enosburg High School.
Cota did not disclose the breakdown of how many students, and how many staff made up the seven known infections, citing concerns for protecting the identity of those people. She did say that it was a mixture of students and staff who had tested positive.
The contact tracing was conducted by the school officials, including the schools’ nursing staff, as well as members of the Vermont Health Department.
Cota said that the cases traced back to all three of Enosurg’s schools, the Enosburg Elementary School, Enosburg High School, and Cold Hollow Career Center.
Those who have tested positive are all undergoing quarantine during their 14-day infectious period. As for the close contacts, they are also under quarantine and will remain so until a negative test has been established, or their 14 day quarantine period is over.
“It is understandable that this news has people worried,” Cota said, ” Every single day, everyone is doing the best they can to keep out schools as safe as they can for both our schools and our staff members.”
Cota said the virus spread into the school system is not a school problem, but a community problem, noting that the health department data shows 71% of infection spread can be traced back to a social gathering.
“[The solution] must come from every single community member within each of our six towns,” Cota said, “This is a call to action.”
As students returned to school this morning, they noticed a significant difference in the school operations from when they left school for the Thanksgiving break. All schools within FNESU will close their gymnasiums, cafeterias, and all congregate settings, Cota said. With the exceptions of high school students- all students will remain in their classrooms, and teachers will rotate from room to room to come to the students.
Cota did not specifically call out school busses as a vector for spreading the virus, however she did encourage all parents who have the ability to transport their kids to and from school to do so, and said the school will spread the remaining students out within the busses.
As for the future, FNESU is considering further action to combat the virus. This includes moving K-5 grades back to a two day a week hybrid model similar to how school began in September, creating more restrictions on bus routes, and shifting education to a remote learning environment in some situations. Cota said that other measures are also being considered.
As or the daily health questions, Cota said that the school only asked those questions until parents certified that they would ask their own children those quesions on a daily basis- bypassing the need for the school to ask those questions.
Cota said that process will continue, and made it clear to parents that they must also ask their children if they have been to a gathering, and act accordingly.
“If information about gatherings comes to an administrator, they will be following up and asking students to quarantine at home, per the Governor’s order,” Cota said.
Cota asked the general community to follow all health guidelines, including refraining from participating in gatherings in order to slow the spread in the community. She said this was imperative to keeping schools open for in-person learning in the near future.
