CENTERBURG – Centerburg Local School District currently has no known COVID-19 cases among students or staff, Superintendent Michael Hebenthal told the Mount Vernon News.
The expected surge after Christmas break never materialized.
“We are at the lowest level we’ve been for a long time,” the superintendent said. “It would be nice if it stayed that way. I am keeping my fingers crossed.”
When a student or staff member does test positive for COVID-19, Knox Public Health normally conducts contact tracing and those exposed must quarantine for 10 days, Hebenthal said.
The school system has also warned students and staff about traveling out of state, a particular concern with the upcoming spring break in late March and early April.
“If you travel to a state that has been identified by the Ohio Department of Health as high risk or travel outside the United States, a student must quarantine 14 days after return before they can come back to school,” Hebenthal wrote in a Jan. 15 letter posted on the school district’s website. He noted that it is basically an honor system since the school system has no way of verifying where students traveled over spring break.
The district is offering both in-school and online instruction.
“Presently, we have 84% of our kids in person at school every day and 16% are online,” Hebenthal said.
The superintendent believes in-school instruction is vital for students.
“We weren’t going to force anybody to come back,” he said. “But kids need a routine. They need to be around their friends. They need to have some kind of normalcy in their lives. Schools are about educating; that’s our mission. But there is a whole lot more gained than just the Three Rs.”
So far during the pandemic, 24 students and 11 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.
“We have 1,200 kids show up every day and 110 staff interacting in a close environment, and we don’t see COVID-19 spreading like crazy,” Hebenthal said. “The protocol seems to be working.”
That protocol includes hand sanitizing and wearing masks.
“As a precaution, if a student or employee reports loss of taste/smell, we will consider the diagnosis to be positive until we receive test results,” the district said on its website.
Staff members will soon be able to obtain a vaccine for COVID-19, although the exact date is uncertain, Hebenthal said. School officials were originally told to expect vaccinations by the first week of February, but that has been pushed back due to limited supplies.
About 70% of the staff members have said they want the vaccine, the superintendent said.
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