District goes remote
Hoosick Falls going remote after COVID cases as other schools make similar moves
Hoosick Falls became the latest Capital Region school district to announce it will pause inperson classes after more positive tests were found in the district./
On Friday, Hoosick Falls became the latest Capital Region school district to announce it will pause in-person classes in response to COVID -19.
The district said it will move to all-remote learning next week after two students at the high school tested positive this week. The cases, announced Monday and Thursday, prompted a number of students and staff to enter quarantine.
The decision to suspend in-person classes, however, was prompted by a trio of factors — the rising number of cases in the community, a significant number of students reporting absent and a high demand for substitute teachers, Superintendent Patrick Dailey wrote in a letter to families posted online Friday.
“We are taking a proactive stance on the health and safety of the students,” he wrote. “While closing the building is a difficult decision, we feel it is in the best interest of students, families and staff.”
Classes from prekindergarten on up to 12th grade will be entirely remote next week, from Monday, Oct. 5 through Friday, Oct. 9, he said. The current plan is for students to return to in-person schooling on Tuesday, Oct. 13, he added.
Elsewhere among school districts
Hoosick Falls is one of at least six area
school districts that announced this week they would be closing a school to allow for tracing, testing and cleaning. HadleyLuzerne, Queensbury, Whitehall, Albany and Hudson Falls school districts also announced closures this week.
On Thursday, Queensbury said its middle and high school buildings would close Friday and reopen Monday after two people from the high school and one person from the middle school tested positive for the virus. The district has had seven cases total since school reopened.
Also on Thursday, the North Warren school district in Chestertown confirmed its first case of coronavirus.
Superintendent Michele French wrote to the school community that the county health department would be in touch with the families of students in grades 7-12 who had close contact with the person by the end of the day Friday. The district was informed of the case late Thursday afternoon, she wrote. The infected person was last in school Wednesday, she said.
While the district will remain open for in-person instruction, French urged parents to monitor their children for any symptoms of COVID -19. Anyone with questions can contact the district office at 518-494-3015 ext. 760.
At least 15 school districts in the region have announced cases of COVID -19 since school started up again this fall. A dozen had cases in the last week.
Two counties see surge
Both Albany and Warren county officials noted a rise in coronavirus cases Friday that can most likely be attributed to the spike in school cases. Warren County confirmed an additional nine residents had tested positive overnight — its largest one-day total since May 12, when 14 were logged.
Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen said the county has started to see “a little bit” of an uptick in
cases. There were 28 new cases overnight, bringing the county ’s five-day average of new daily cases to 14.8. It was 8.4 at the start of September.
The uptick is undoubtedly connected to the resumption of school. On Tuesday, the county warned that it had seen a 12.5 percent increase in positive cases among 10- to 19-year-olds over the past week, compared to a 5.1 percent increase in 20to 29-year-olds — who throughout the summer and up until recently have fueled much of the county ’s cases.
“There was a concern that there would be a second surge of COVID in the fall,” Whalen said. “I don’t know whether what we’re seeing is constituting a surge but it is constituting a caution.”
The county also announced its first virus-related death in nearly three weeks Friday. The victim was a man in his 70s with underlying health issues. He is the county ’s 135th known death from COVID -19 and the 346th confirmed victim in the eight-county Capital Region.
There was some good news Friday: County Executive Dan Mccoy said the percentage of daily cases the county has been
able to trace back to the University at Albany has fallen. The university saw a spike in cases several weeks ago that prompted county and university officials to hold a press conference urging vigilance on the part of students.
As of Thursday, just over 13 percent of new daily cases in the county could be traced back to Ualbany — down from 61 percent last week and 84 percent the week before, Mccoy said.
“The students had to learn, right?,” he said. “Students came, got a little freedom and some of them didn’t do the right thing so that number went up. Now, I think they ’re getting it.”
Cluster at fruit farm
Columbia County health officials are testing and tracing possible exposures after 10 migrant workers in the Hudson area tested positive for coronavirus Thursday. County Public Health Director Jack Mabb announced the cases Friday, and said the workers all hail from the same fruit farm. They reside in a single home used by workers who do not live on the farm itself, he said.
“There is no indication that this outbreak presents a danger to the public at large,” he said. “The Department of Health’s contact tracing efforts are showing us that the workers’ movements have been confined to the farm and the residence.”
He did not specify which farm had the cluster, but said it does not operate a market or otherwise interact with the public. The workers have been ordered to quarantine, and 10 people who had contact with them have as well, Mabb said.
Health officials tested 51 workers Thursday in an effort to identify cases and contain the cluster, he said. The remaining workers were being tested Friday, which would bring the total tested over the two days to approximately 90.
Greene County offices close
The Greene County Office Building will be sanitized over the weekend and open Monday after a person in the building tested positive for coronavirus.
The person’s case is asymptomatic so far and they have been ordered to quarantine. All other Greene County buildings and operations will remain open, the county said.