Following a spike of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations statewide, Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday announced additional guidance for red zone counties to help curb the spread of coronavirus. In recent days he’s repeatedly pointed out that the guidance is about the entire community shouldering the burden — not just school systems, which have been asked to switch to virtual learning when their county is in the red zone.
(A “red zone” is a county with 25 or more average daily cases per 100,000 residents, or an incidence rate of 25 or more.)
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The school guidance has been in place since mid-September. Since the recommendations were first announced on Sept. 14, Christian County has been in the red zone on 32 separate days and for the last three weeks, according to the most current numbers calculated using daily case reports from the Christian County Health Department.
Despite rising local cases numbers, Christian County schools — like some others in the state — have opted to continue in-person learning. It’s a position that local school officials this week maintained.
Christian County’s public school district is among at least 26 districts in red counties on the state’s Oct. 22 incidence rate map that held in-person classes this week, a Kentucky School Boards Association spokeswoman confirmed. On Oct. 22, 48 counties were considered red, which was up to 56 on Wednesday. (Some counties have more than one school district.)
According to the KSBA, at least 29 districts that had been holding in-person classes moved to virtual instruction this week. Not all of them were red on the Oct. 22 incidence map — some moved to virtual instruction as their county became red this week, while others moved to virtual because of a high number of students and/or staff who tested positive or are in quarantine.
As of Thursday, 159 of Kentucky’s 171 school districts had started in-person instruction for this year.
When state officials announced the guidance for red zone counties, they said it would apply as along as the state’s COVID-19 test positivity rate remained under 6%. However, on Wednesday when the metric reached 6.07% Beshear said guidance would remain in effect next week given the fact that the percentage didn’t exceed 6% by much and because there will be so many red counties already advised not to hold in-person classes.
While Beshear has commended schools on their hard work to curb the spread of the virus and said they generally haven’t driven community transmission, he warned that once community transmission reaches high levels, the virus “is going to get in the schools.”
No plans yet for virtual instruction
Christian County Public Schools
Christian County Public Schools Superintendent Chris Bentzel said Tuesday that the district does not plan to switch to virtual instruction following the governor’s announcement of additional recommendations for red zone counties, adding that the district felt all criteria had been to keep instruction in-person had been met.
On Friday, he laid out the criteria considered by the district in a video message to parents. It included:
- Incidence rate
- Active cases
- Hospital capacity
- Input from pediatricians
- Student and staff active COVID-19 cases, the spread in-school and welfare checks of positive cases
“What schools are doing has been working,” he said in the message. “Every time we have a break — Labor Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Fall Break — we see a spike afterwards. I think kids being in school requires the mask, requires a sanitized location. Most of the time, I’d say about 75% of the time, we can stay 6 feet apart. In high schools and middle schools, we can always stay six feet apart, because of the hydbrid schedule.
“We’re doing good things in our schools and keeping our kids safe.”
Bentzel has maintained that the district is keeping students in a more controlled environment than they be in without in-person instruction and virtual classes are not as effective as in-person learning.
“Without in-person learning, we could not do what we’re doing to service out kids, not just academically, but socially, emotionally, intellectually, and just all the wrap-around services possible,” Bentzel said in his address to parents Friday, pointing to the increased number of meals served since instruction began and the more than 500 mental health visits to counselors and social workers, including 12 suicide screenings.
Local private schools
Local private schools have taken a similar stance.
“At this time, University Heights Academy will continue to provide in-person instruction,” UHA Head of School Beth Unfried told Hoptown Chronicle. “Following our UHA safety measures at school and at extracurricular activities, we believe we can provide student opportunities safely.”
Heritage Christian Academy and Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School also plan, for now, to continue with in-person instruction.
“We’re grateful as a school, as a whole, that we’re doing well,” said HCA Healthy at School Officer Stephanie Boyd. “We’re thankful to be in-person.
“We’re taking it one week at a time — maybe, one day at a time.”
Boyd attributed much of the school’s success so far during the pandemic to the health department.
“They’ve been wonderful,” she said. “Not only have they given us guidance, but they’ve helped us with our contact tracing and anything like that. They’ve worked hard.”
Millbrooke Elementary outbreak prompts temporary shift to virtual learning
One exception to CCPS’ continuation of in-person learning was announced Wednesday, following an outbreak at Millbrooke Elementary.
As of Wednesday, seven students and five staff members had tested positive for COVID-19, and 57 students and two staff members were quarantined because of school-related exposure, district spokesman John Rittenhouse told Hoptown Chronicle.
In response, the school district announced that the school will shift to remote instruction for three days.
Bentzel said in a letter sent to staff and parents on Wednesday that although, “student attendance remains around 90%, health data also shows signs of early flu and stomach virus cases in the school. A combination of all these factors led to this decision.”
During the period of remote instruction, the building will be disinfected and there will be a deep clean of all rooms and common areas, Bentzel said.
A day before the announcement was made, Bentzel was asked during the media briefing about reports of a class being dismissed early from Millbrooke. While Bentzel denied the dismissal, his answer suggested there had been an illness at the school.
“We’ve had some kids with non-COVID situations,” Bentzel said. “I believe it’s a stomach bug, some vomiting issues.
“That’s the thing with COVID — can’t just be sick anymore. There’s a lot of things going on that you have to check on, procedures and policies.”
When asked about the district’s policy for screening students who become ill during class or are sent to the nurses office, Bentzel said students in that situation are screened by the school nurse for COVID-19 symptoms per guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the Christian County Health Department.
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“The majority of the time, if they go to the nurse and the assessment results in a phone call home and the parent comes up and gets them, they’re put into a little bit of an isolation area so they don’t … it wouldn’t spread anywhere, to the nurse or anyone else,” he said, noting schools nurses are provided with personal protective equipment.
Local schools have reported more than 80 coronavirus cases since classes resumed
Since returning to instruction earlier this fall, 61 students and 25 school staff members in Christian County have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the state’s K-12 COVID-19 Dashboard. Additionally, 270 students and nine school staff members have been required to quarantine due to school-related exposure to the virus.
Of the overall total, 14 student cases and five staff cases have been reported by Christian County’s three private schools, while 47 student cases and 20 staff cases have been reported by CCPS.
Schools with the most cases include Milbrooke Elementary, with 13 cases; Christian County High and University Heights Academy, with 12 cases each; and Hopkinsville High School, with eight cases.
Christian County Public Schools returned to classes on Sept. 8, roughly three weeks earlier than a recommendation from Beshear. Elementary school students returned to traditional, in-person schedule five days a week. Middle and high schoolers returned to a hybrid schedule aimed at limiting exposure — in-person two days a week and virtual learning for the remainder of the week.
During a recent school board meeting, Bentzel discussed plans for middle students to return to in-person instruction five days a week on Nov. 16. He used Millbrooke Elementary — the district’s largest elementary school at 747 students —as an example of how the district could make five-day, in-person instruction work for the middle schools.
Bentzel said he expects the plan to be finalized at the school board meeting on Nov. 5.
School sports have contributed to local spike in cases, health officials say
As county health officials last week reported the largest number of cases in a single day, Health Director Kayla Bebout pointed to a cluster in a local school’s sports team as contributing to community spread locally. She declined to identify the team because the health department wants to maintain a good line of communication with the school.
In addition to the guidance from the Kentucky Department of Education and Kentucky Public Health that red zone counties switch to remote instruction, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association has recommended those counties also suspend all athletic activities. Local public and private schools have opted to continue athletic and extracurricular activities, despite the guidance.
Schools officials say only 2 student athletes have tested positive
School officials say their safety processes are working well so far, and that sports haven’t prompted any significant issues.
Bentzel said the district implemented a monitoring piece for its athletic and extracurricular programs and considers the decision to move forward with those activities on a daily basis. He noted that the decision to continue sports is not just about what happens on the field.
“We value athletics greatly in Christian County Public Schools,” he said. “It’s not because I like to play basketball, watch basketball, watch football. It’s because of what athletics do for our kids. They open up doors. They open up potential opportunities for secondary ed, they open up leadership capabilities, they build [teamwork], they build discipline.”
So far, CCPS has had to place five of its sports teams under quarantine — Hopkinsville High School’s girls soccer team, football team and cheerleading squad, as well as Christian County High School’s football team and JV volleyball team.
Bentzel has repeatedly said that the district has not had any school-related quarantines result in someone testing positive for COVID-19, specifically pointing to success with sports teams.
“We’ve not seen a close contact quarantine become positive from a school event, other than we had back in early September … Hopkinsville High School cheerleading team, but we consider that from an outside source of practice and some other activities those girls did,” Bentzel said.
(According to the state’s K-12 COVID-19 Dashboard and the self-reporting portal instructions, schools are only required to report quarantines due to exposure that has occurred through school-related activities, including extracurricular and athletic activities.)
Heritage Christian Academy has had a positive case tied to a sports team that prompted the school to quarantine the team, confirmed Boyd.
“They are all back, so we are grateful,” Boyd said. “They all have been released now from the health department. Their date is up and they’re back in school.”
Unfried said UHA has not had any sports-related positive cases.
Noncompliance from schools raises questions about community buy-in
Beshear said earlier this week that communities, long-term care facilities and school leaders and administrators, as well as Kentucky families in red zone counties, should prepare a weekly COVID-19 reduction plan each Thursday based on their county’s incidence rate.
“It’s about everybody having to pitch in when a community is in the red and that school system not shouldering the burden of all of it,” he said. “I’d hope no community would say ‘we’re not going to do it’ while the school system is.”
Those watching from Christian County may have wondered, “What will a community do if the school system isn’t following recommendations?”
“That is a great question and a great concern that we have here at the health department,” Bebout said Wednesday during the health department’s bi-weekly conference call.
She noted that, ultimately, the decision to switch to virtual learning is up to the school board and acknowledged that the schools are trying to do what’s best for their students.
“So, I think the schools, although they’re not following those recommendations, they are following what is happening in their schools to try to do the best possible,” Bebout said. “Of course, we would encourage and recommend that they not be open, but at the same time, they are the expert of their profession and know a little bit more about what the greater need is for those students.”
Bebout noted that from a local government leadership standpoint, she believes the county will have buy-in regarding the enhanced red zone recommendations.
Mayor Wendell Lynch echoed the sentiment.
“We do support the governor’s recommendations locally,” Lynch said during Wednesday’s call. “We will continue to emphasize that every opportunity we get, but within city government, we are constantly re-evaluating our strategies and speaking with key personnel to implement strategies that are safe at work, and we’re encouraging the rest of the community to do the same.”
(Julia Hunter is the webmaster for Hoptown Chronicle. Reach her at julia@hoptownchronicle.org.)
Julia Hunter is the engagement editor for Hoptown Chronicle. Reach her at julia@hoptownchronicle.org.
