Licking Valley High to go remote
Licking Valley High School switched to remote learning on Tuesday after a spike in COVID-19 cases forced more than 200 students into quarantine.
Superintendent Dave Hile on Monday said the high school will go to remote learning until Sept. 10 because so many kids have been forced to quarantine.
According to information from the Licking County Health Department, there were 18 active COVID-19 cases at the high school as of mid-monday resulting in 214 individuals placed on quarantine. According to the Ohio Department of Education, there were 529 students enrolled at the school during the 2019-20 year.
Hile said the district is up to 28 positive cases this year, nearly the same amount it saw (33) all of last year. He noted the latest outbreak has forced the district to quarantine more students in the first two weeks of this school year than they did all of last year, as well. He noted some additional cases over the weekend could force 70-80 additional students to quarantine.
The Licking Valley outbreak comes as the larger community is seeing a spike in positive cases. The county reported 594 active cases as of Monday, including 26 hospitalizations. This is up from 518 cases and 18 hospitalizations on Wednesday, and 377 cases and seven hospitalizations on Aug. 18.
Licking County Health Commissioner Chad Brown on Monday afternoon said the case numbers in Licking County are higher than they were at this time last year — something he said is fairly common across Ohio. He encouraged people to get vaccinated if they are eligible, to stay home if they are ill and to wear a mask when possible.
While masking wasn’t required in Licking County schools, those students who are not vaccinated and who don’t wear masks face potential quarantine. According to the health department, this is how schools should treat students and staff should cases emerge:
h Vaccinated people identified as a close contact do not have to quarantine as long as they have no symptoms but should wear a mask indoors as much as possible for 14 days.
h Unvaccinated people who consistently wear a mask identified as a close contact do not have to quarantine as long as they have no symptoms but should wear a mask indoors as much as possible for 14 days.
h Unvaccinated people who do not consistently wear a mask should quarantine for 10 days and not attend inperson school or participate in sports or extracurricular activities.
Hile, who previously said they were operating under a pre-pandemic mode, said the outbreak hasn’t caused him to rethink starting school without a mask mandate. He noted Valley would have been the only school in the county to have done so, and that many people in the district have decided that preventing the spread of COVID is not is of critical importance.
“I don’t think there’s any wakeup calls that are going to work at this point,” Hile said. “People who have been opposed are going to be angrier now. It (the school closing) won’t change their mind about the pandemic and COVID.”
Hile noted that parents of 200 students, which is about 10% of the population, put in exemptions last school year for their children to not have to wear masks. He said the district has tried to communicate the ramifications for not being vaccinated or wearing a mask, but added “people have to make their own decisions.”