Morley Stanwood Community Schools announced Wednesday afternoon that it is closing its high school until Friday, Sept. 24, following 14 positive COVID-19 cases within the school.
According to Morley Stanwood Community Schools superintendent Roger Cole, 14 students in the high school have tested positive for COVID-19 and 155 students are considered close contacts.
“I couldn’t tell you where it came from, but we can see from seating charts what kids have it, but its hard to tell where it came from because kids move to six different parts of the school a day,” Cole said.
High school students will be learning remotely while the building is closed.
The Walter Erickson Public Library, on the campus of Morley Stanwood Community Schools, has four hot spots available for check out, along with several computers students can use if they are not sick.
“Any way that we’re able to facilitate,” said Library Director Cory Taylor. “Obviously we’re a small library. We don’t have the resources as some of the bigger libraries, but we’ll do whatever we can.”
District Health Department #10 says this is something they expected to see, and it’s only increasing.
“This is following the pattern we expected given the lack of full mitigation measures about a week or two after school started,” said Medical Director Dr. Jennifer Morse. “We’re seeing schools that are getting half a dozen to a dozen positive cases a day. Lots of symptomatic individuals.”
Morley Stanwood decided to have an optional mask policy at the beginning of the school year, but with the rising number of cases, they’re not sure what they’re going to do next.
“My gut reaction is this is still a choice for a parent to make,” said Cole. “What are we going to do going forward, I don’t have an answer for that.”
In a letter sent home to parents, the superintendent says additional closures could occur after a full evaluation of the situation.
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