Entire MS Coast high school sent home for 2 weeks after COVID-19 outbreak
All students at Hancock High School will switch to distance learning until Oct. 14, Principal Tara Ladner told parents and teachers Wednesday afternoon.
Seventeen students and three staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last few days, public relations administrator Joan Sales told the Sun Herald.
Ladner attributed “an increasing number of positive cases” at the school to the Labor Day holiday, hurricane evacuations, and other events.
Ladner said Hancock was following guidelines from the state health department that a school should close when three or more individual classes or groups experience an outbreak, defined as three or more cases.
“Based on contact tracing efforts by Hancock High staff, we have determined that these cases are not likely school spread, but rather the result of community spread,” Ladner wrote.
Hancock High is the second Coast school in two days to close due to an outbreak of COVID-19. Long Beach Middle School announced yesterday that it would close until Oct. 14.
Ladner’s announcement came on the same day that the state released school-by-school COVID-19 numbers for the first time. No Hancock County School District schools were included on that list, which documented cases recorded last week.
A press release from the district issued later Wednesday afternoon said that 222 students were in quarantine, comprising 17% of the student body.
After quarantining the football team, the school had identified additional positive cases today, the press release said.
Just before Hancock High students, parents and staff learned their school would close for two weeks, Gov. Tate Reeves announced at a press conference that he was ending the state’s mask mandate. He is keeping it in place for schools.
“It’s the smart, prudent thing to do,” Reeves said of wearing a mask in public. “But there is a difference between something being wise and something being a government mandate. We have to reserve that for our most critical moments.”
At the same press conference, he urged schools that are instructing students virtually to reopen their campuses as soon as possible.
On Monday, the Hancock High football team went into quarantine and forfeited its upcoming game against Jackson County’s St. Martin High School.
Ladner signed a post on the Hancock High Facebook page that suggested people who reported COVID-19 cases to the school had faced social consequences.
“In an effort to keep one another safe, we want students and their families to feel welcome and comfortable self-reporting positive cases of Covid-19,” she wrote. “We need you to avoid creating an environment that punishes a parent or student for reporting. Hawks, you must conduct yourself in person and on social media in a way that avoids any form of harassment or bullying. Please be reminded of the fact that individuals cannot escape social media; it is inherently designed to bombard us.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 3:45 PM.
