Virus cases prompt closure at Pen Argyl

High school to shut for a week after two new infections found

Pen Argyl High School is closing for a week after two cases of the coronavirus were found Tuesday.

In a Tuesday email to parents, staff and students, Superintendent Wally Schlegel said the high school will reopen Sept. 23.

Athletic events have been canceled or postponed, according to the district’s website. A Friday night football game against Northwestern Lehigh has been postponed, and Northwestern Lehigh will play Berks Catholic instead.

Over the course of the week, the school will be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, Schlegel said in the email. Students will get instruction through Google Classroom. Schlegel did not return requests for comment.

Cheryl Hance, a high school

English teacher and president of the Pen Argyl Education Association, said the closure was the right move.

She said students have been cooperative and observed the additional safety measures. They wear masks all the time, except when they’re eating, and observe social distancing, she said. There are also many opportunities throughout the day to disinfect desks and for students to wash their hands and desks.

“We expected that this might happen, but we didn’t expect it so soon in the course of the year because our students and staff have all been extremely cooperative with following the safety measures,” she said. “But of course when you hear somebody in the building had a positive result, naturally there is a concern you may have come in contact with this person.”

She said teachers were told the state Health Department would reach out to teachers who had close contact with the infected students.

Pen Argyl High School is the first in the Lehigh Valley to close this fall because of COVID-19 cases. The district, along with many others, is operating under a hybrid model in which half of students are in school buildings at a given time, with the rest learning remotely. The district also offers an entirely remote option.

Bethlehem Area School District this week reported six COVID-19 cases in five schools on its website, and Parkland School District officials notified families of two COVID-19 cases at the high school. Neither district closed schools.

The Health Department sent recommendations for schools about how to keep everyone safe, spokesperson Nate Ward le said in an email. But every school is different.

“A younger student that is in one class all day may have very different exposures than someone who is [in] multiple rooms in a building,” he said. The department conducts investigations to determine potential exposures with close contacts — those within 6 feet for 15 or more minutes — and notifies them as part of the department’s contract tracing efforts, Wardle said.