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Education

Scottsdale Schools battles recent COVID-19 outbreak

Posted 10/27/20

The Scottsdale Unified School District’s Governing Board recently discussed what measures they are taking to combat a recent outbreak at Chaparral High School.

Chaparral High School …

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Education

Scottsdale Schools battles recent COVID-19 outbreak

Posted

The Scottsdale Unified School District’s Governing Board recently discussed what measures they are taking to combat a recent outbreak at Chaparral High School.

Chaparral High School reopened for in-person classes on Monday, Oct. 19, and within the next day an outbreak of the virus arose.

“As we returned back, we started hearing reports of individuals that tested positive for COVID, and with Chaparral, there was a significant number,” said Scott Menzel, SUSD superintendent, in a Governing Board meeting Tuesday, Oct. 20.

Maricopa County has reported six COVID-19 outbreaks in SUSD. The county defines an outbreak as two or more individuals in close proximity who do not live in the same household, testing positive in a 14-day period.

After nearly 20 students and staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus after attending in-person classes on campus, a letter was sent out by Dr. Menzel to over 200 potentially exposed families to quarantine.

“We issued the letter to our families urging them to take the mask-wearing requirement seriously when in public, maintaining physical distance, hand washing, and most importantly, not coming to school when sick,” said Dr. Menzel.

According to Maricopa County Department of Public Health, there are 23 confirmed active cases at the school as of Friday, Oct. 23.

READ:  Scottsdale's COVID-19 count continues steady climb

The superintendent said that the cases could have been worse.

“If we had been running a conventional schedule of six classes, we would have double the number of students who had to quarantine because the students would have been in six classes with different classmates as opposed to the present hybrid structure of three classes that are only 73 minutes long,” Dr. Menzel said.

Although the superintendent believes that cases could have been higher, he said that because of the indication by county health officials that there is a 5% increased positivity rate, the district is doing everything they can to make sure that it’s not spreading to staff and students when they are at school.

“We have the mandatory mask policy still in place, newly implemented air filtration units at all of our schools that are better for circulating air, which is a key component of COVID prevention, and several hand washing stations,” said Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board member Jann-Michael Greenburg. “In addition to all of that, we also do static cleaning every single day, which is a part of the disinfection process.”

With all that has been implemented to protect students and staff from the virus, the district does not believe the virus is spreading from being at school but rather by students participating in outside functions.

“It seems that the spread of COVID-19 between students is happening during after school hours, potentially at social gatherings, parties, or during athletic events,” said Mr. Greenburg. “While we have canceled certain football games or have quarantined certain teams, we’re still seeing some of those numbers. So I really think a lot of it is coming from outside of school activities.”

With all the uncertainty the virus has caused in its long term effects, the district is hopeful that there will be a vaccine soon.

“We really don’t know what the long term effects are right now and the hope is that within the next 6-12 months we might have a verified functioning vaccine and maybe by then it’d be a better time to send children back to school,” said Mr. Greenburg.

Editor’s Note: Gabriella Herran-Romero is a student reporter at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.