Mountain Pine pupils go remote
MOUNTAIN PINE — With 60 students and five staff members quarantined because of covid-19, and other students out with various illnesses, the Mountain Pine School District closed the week before Thanksgiving and students attended classes online.
High school students attended class virtually Tuesday and Wednesday, joined by elementary students Thursday for the remainder of the week.
“The high school football team was assigned to virtual learning [last] week; they are not quarantined — there is a difference. Quarantine would mean they had been exposed to a positive case of covid-19,” the district said on its Facebook page.
Garland County Health Officer Dr. Gene Shelby stressed the fact that “we’re still in a pandemic with a highly contagious respiratory virus that hasn’t gone away.”
“Our numbers are down and I think we’ve done a good job, but this virus is going to be with us, and I still encourage people — if you’re going to be around people that you don’t know or you know that they’re not vaccinated, I’d wear a mask,” he said.
“And, unfortunately, you know, for the county, we’re at about 50% vaccinated [age] 12 and above, and so there’s a lot of people unvaccinated. I know some people are referring to this as the pandemic of the unvaccinated and, so, unfortunately, we’ll probably see things like this pop up for the foreseeable future.”
The decision to switch to virtual learning last week came after Garland County experienced its first uptick in positive covid-19 cases in more than a month.
According to the post on the district’s Facebook page, elementary students remained on campus through Wednesday in order to allow working parents to make arrangements for their children to be home. About 40% of the high school’s teachers and more than 147 students were out last week because of illnesses.
“We have had students out for flu, strep, cold and sinus infections,” it said.
As of Wednesday morning, 60 students and five staff members were quarantined, with three staffers and one student having tested positive for covid-19. The district noted that if proper mask-wearing protocol had been followed, the number would not have been so high.
The district adopted a mask mandate after the first week of school when the district saw a dramatic increase in positive cases. The mandate was lifted in mid-October after the numbers lowered, in favor of masks being highly encouraged.
Teachers were on campus Thursday and Friday to answer students’ questions via phone or electronic means, the post noted, adding that classrooms and common areas of schools were getting a deep cleaning in preparation for students returning after the Thanksgiving break.
“The school district has no hidden agenda, our sole purpose is to provide a safe, clean and healthy environment for our students to learn in and for our staff to work in,” it said.
“We have used federal funds to upgrade air conditioning to improve air quality this year as well as keeping the same cleaning protocols we have had since the pandemic started,” it said. “We continue to provide sanitizing wipes, Lysol and hand sanitizer to all classrooms and areas of the campus where students may congregate.”