COVID cases growing in Mid-Prairie schools

Part way through the second week of school, the Mid-Prairie school district has canceled some activities due to COVID-19 concerns, which have nearly 100 students and staff in quarantine.

On Wednesday, Activities Director Tyler Hotz announced that all Thursday volleyball matches, Friday's varsity football game and Tuesday's junior varsity football game were canceled due to COVID-19.

'We will attempt to reschedule volleyball but not football,” Hotz said Wednesday. 'The decision was based on the current data of positive cases and quarantined students/staff. I have had multiple conversations over the phone with Regina's AD today about this situation.”

Superintendent Mark Schneider said Mid-Prairie contacted the other schools about Mid-Prairie's COVID-19 numbers in an effort 'to be upfront about everything.”

'The decision to cancel the games was mutual,” Schneider said. 'Everyone's concern was for the safety of all parties involved.”

Mid-Prairie reported that 94 students and three staff members were absent due to quarantine, and three students were absent due to positive COVID-19 tests on Thursday.

The number of quarantine-related absenses for students has risen each day this week, from 42 on Monday to 57 on Tuesday to 83 on Wednesday.

Quarantined students are expected to 'complete the learning and activities that are provided to them during quarantine,” according to a letter to parents from High School Principal Jay Strickland.

Schneider said that the district's school nurses report the data at the end of each school day, and the information is added to the 'COVID-19 Data” tab on the district web site, mphawks.org.

'The data is compiled by our school nurses on a daily basis,” Schneider wrote in a message to parents Tuesday. 'They are providing a super-human effort and deserve our thanks for the work they are doing while under a tremendous amount of stress.”

Schneider emphasized that the numbers on the district website are totals for each day and not cumulative.

He said that the nurses rely on information from Washington County Public Health and parents for the confirmation of a positive COVID-19 test.

'Employees are required to report to us when they test positive,” Schneider said. 'All students and employees that become ill at school, for whatever reason, are sent home, but they are not counted as a COVID case until confirmed by a positive test.”

He added that the decision to quarantine a student or staff member is made by Washington County Public Health, not the district.

Schneider said that he has been in contact with school board President Marianne Schlabach, keeping her updated with the numbers.

'We're planning a special school board meeting on Tuesday (Sept. 8),” Schneider said Thursday morning. 'We plan to keep the board members up to date with the numbers.

'I don't expect any hard and fast decisions to be made Tuesday.”

When asked what the threshold would be for the board to reconsider its decision to start school with 100 percent in-person learning, Schneider said that would be discussed at Tuesday's meeting.

'We will talk about what the numbers have to be to raise any red flags,” he said.

In July, Mid-Prairie administrators originally recommended opening the school year with an in-person, half-time model, but the school board balked at the idea and voted to open the year with full-time, in-person learning.

Tuesday's meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the high school multi-purpose room.