8 teachers, staff test positive for COVID-19 at Mississippi Coast elementary school
Eight employees at St. Martin North Elementary School have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last few days, said Jackson County School District Superintendent John Strycker.
One student at the school has also tested positive, Strycker said. That was the only positive case among students recorded in the district yesterday.
Yesterday’s tally was the largest number of employees who have tested positive at one school in the Jackson County School District at a time, Strycker said. The district’s leadership receives a daily report of the number of cases among staff and students at schools across the district. It reports case figures weekly on its website.
No one has been required to stay home due to possible exposure to someone who tested positive for the virus. Instead, the district has followed its policy of alerting the parents of students who may have been exposed and giving them the option to keep their kids at home.
The CDC recommends that people who have been exposed to the virus stay home from school and monitor their health.
At one point in August, 23 students at East Central Middle School were reported positive for COVID-19, the largest number of cases the district has seen at one time. The district started sending letters asking parents to keep students home if they’d been exposed, but many of them chose to keep their kids in school, Strycker said.
Instead, the students in a classroom where someone has tested positive is basically isolated at the school, including getting lunches delivered to the classroom.
“Even with the last step, when we sent a letter home, basically we’re quarantining them at school is the summary of it,” Strycker said. “But the majority still sent their children to school.”
Strycker said he doesn’t know yet whether transmission of the virus took place at school. Principals are responsible for contact tracing, he said.
The decision of whether to close a school as a result of an outbreak is made on “a case by case basis,” Strycker said.
State guidelines say that schools should close if they have three or more outbreaks, defined as three or more cases in one classroom or sports team or group, at one time. Strycker said that guideline is part of the district’s calculus.
A Jackson County School District teacher, Tom Slade of Vancleave High School, died due to coronavirus complications earlier this month after contracting the virus at a meeting outside of school.
