Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. officials said the school corporation isn’t seeing a rapid increase in COVID cases following spring break, with 26 positive COVID-19 cases reported since the week before spring break began.
"Having more students in our buildings may result in a higher number of cases and certainly increases the potential for more close contacts," said Superintendent Jim Roberts. "Our experience also indicates that cases tend to increase after prolonged breaks. However, our current positive case numbers are not showing an increase. "
BCSC recently wrapped up its spring break, with students returning to classes on March 22. As of Tuesday, Roberts said that there have been 26 cases since March 5 (spring break began on March 10). He said that 206 close contacts have had to quarantine as a result of those cases.
That 26 cases over three weeks is an average of about nine cases a week, compared to an average of 20.5 cases per week over the prior four weeks, Roberts said.
Since March 5, there have been 11 high school positive test cases (all students) and 76 close contacts (about seven per student).
March 22 also marked the return of high school students to traditional in-person learning for the first time since November, when school corporation moved to districtwide eLearning.
Elementary schools returned to in-person at the beginning of the new semester, while secondary schools started in a hybrid model. BCSC later enacted a phased return to in-person, with middle schools returning to in-person the week of Feb. 22 and high schools returning a month later.
Roberts said that the return to in-person is going well.
"Everyone — students, their parents, our staff members — seems to be very happy having them all back in our buildings," he said.
In late 2020, Roberts cited “physical distancing” as the main reason that secondary schools would begin the new semester with hybrid learning. He said that these school buildings had the biggest challenges in regards to distancing and saw positive cases that led to a “large number of close contacts.”
When asked recently if there have been any struggles with social distancing, Roberts replied, "We will always struggle with proper physical distancing and there is a greater challenge with all students in our buildings. Similar to how we began this school year, our staff members are being creative with the use of space and can, hopefully, take advantage of good spring weather to move students outside as often as possible."
He also said that students and staff are "continuing to practice proper mitigation strategies," and mask-wearing is being enforced.
Another possible factor that could influence case counts is the recent spring break. However, it could be a month or so before any potential trend emerges. In the past, Roberts has said that spikes attributable to school breaks and holidays don’t start to show until 35 to 38 days after the break. According to that line of thinking, a possible spike might not become visible until late April.
The 2020 fall break took place from Oct. 5 through Oct. 9 and was a week long, compared to the recent week-and-a-half-long spring break. On Oct. 2, the school corp. reported a total of 29 confirmed positive cases since August; by Oct. 16, the number had almost doubled. The school stated at the time that "a sizable number of cases" were reported during and immediately after fall break.
By Nov. 6 — one day after the school corp. announced its move to districtwide eLearning — a total of 106 cases had been reported since August.
Roberts said that "relaxation of mitigation strategies by the general population" is another factor that will influence COVID-19 spread. He said that BCSC believes it is important for everyone to continue wearing masks, remain sufficiently socially distanced and wash their hands often.
"We are treating our school days now like we did back on August 10, our first student day of the school year," he said. "Our goal is to keep students fully in school through the remainder of the year and we hope to be able to hold a proper prom and graduation. In order to accomplish this, we need everyone to continue to practice appropriate mitigation strategies."
The COVID-19 Community Task Force’s latest community spread update, posted Monday, showed that there may be a local uptick as two indicators are back in the red.
The per capita positive rate is 11.8 and increasing (as of March 28)
The percent positive test rate is 15.5% and increasing (as of March 24)
There are six COVID hospitalizations, and the indicator is holding steady (as of March 28)
Per capita positive rate and percent positive test rate are back in the substantial spread category. Test turnaround time and COVID hospitalizations are in the minimal spread category.
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For more on Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., visit https://www.bcscschools.org/.
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