Four Paradise students positive

District says students are in quarantine

PARADISE » Paradise Unified School District Superintendent Tom Taylor said Thursday night that four students who attend the district have tested positive for coronavirus. Taylor said Butte County Public Health told him there is no information indicating that the transmissions were schoolrelated.

Taylors says all four students are being quarantined for 14 days and that Public Health has encouraged all four students to be tested before returning to school.

In fact, Taylor told trustees in Tuesday night’s school board meeting, county Public Health has told the district that is very impressed with district protocols as they relate to mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

Taylor says that all of the students in the district are sitting 6 feet apart and all are required to wear masks. While one teacher, Rachel Kagen, told the board there have been a few students who have balked at maskwearing, it’s rare.

Taylor noted that one of the reasons Paradise has been able to keep students apart is that, particularly at the high school level, school attendance is less than half of what it was since before the Camp Fire. In fact according to the agenda, PUSD has 1,537 students in the district, which is about 45 percent of the pre-fire attendance.

Paradise High currently houses 419 students — half of whom go to school on Monday and Wednesday while the others go to school Tuesday and Thursday. The fact that the school once housed more than 1,500 students, but now houses less than 420 has turned out to be an advantage for the school to accomplish social distancing.