HAZELWOOD, Mo. — A school district in St. Louis County is dealing with a spike in COVID cases.
Missouri Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education data shows the Hazelwood community is near the top, with more than 80 children being diagnosed with COVID in the past two weeks.
The Hazelwood School District tracks COVID cases and quarantines on their website dashboard. Tuesday, out of nearly 17,000 students, the district has more than 800 children who are actively quarantined.
Dan Short's daughter just got out of COVID quarantine.
“She was exposed,” said Short. “It was one of her classmates, so they kicked her out of school for 10 days. She goes back tomorrow.”
Short’s daughter is one of the hundreds of Hazelwood students who have been impacted so far this school year.
Charise Dunn has one child at Hazelwood East High School. She believes the district is communicating well.
“I think Hazelwood is doing a very good job of keeping everyone safe,” said Dunn, “because their response time is really great, and they were on it.”
Hazelwood School District officials declined an on-camera interview on the subject. However, in response to an email, communications director Anthony Kiekow said the district is doing its own contact tracing in accordance with St. Louis County Health Department guidelines. He also said while many employees are vaccinated, it is not required. All students and staff are required to wear masks, though.
That mask mandate has been in place since March, when Hazelwood became the last district in our region to resume in-person classes. The district said it will continue to be proactive when it comes to minimizing the risk to students, workers and families.
There are several other districts in the St. Louis area where hundreds of students are currently quarantined. More than 340 kids are quarantined in Fort Zumwalt, and more than 270 are quarantined in Wentzville.
Unlike Hazelwood, those districts do not have mask mandates.