O'FALLON, Ill. — School is in session at Central Elementary School, but you won’t find a single student in the classroom for the next two weeks.
“As hard as I tried to keep the kids in school it’s heartbreaking that we had to move to remote learning,” said Superintendent Dawn Elser
Central Elementary Superintendent Dawn Elser made the call to move roughly 300 students to remote learning after a saliva-based SHIELD test revealed 37 kids and 7 staff members were COVID positive.
“It’s just a difficult situation,” said Elser. “We absolutely don’t want to see any of our students or staff members coming down with COVID. We’ve had a couple of staff members that are very sick, and I know some of the children aren’t feeling well.”
With kids out of the classroom until after Thanksgiving, and Christmas right around the corner, county leaders believe parents should take advantage of these two weeks by getting their kids vaccinated.
“The parents just have to make that decision,” said St. Clair County Emergency Manager Herb Simmons. “I know sometimes it’s rough for them.”
“I’ve had a few parents who reported that they did have their child vaccinated, but not enough that any of them were fully vaccinated or anything like that,” said Elser.
With the daily positivity rate hovering around 11%, Simmons believes vaccines are the only way to keep kids in the classroom and ensure a happy holiday.
“A little bit of prevention is going to go a long, long way especially with the holidays coming up and people want to get together,” said Simmons. “I don’t want to see those numbers going back up.”
“It’s something we would encourage if parents could get their child vaccinated,” said Elser. “Working with different health providers if there is an opportunity for us to provide it at the school, it’s something we would entertain.”
The St. Clair County Health Department offers free COVID vaccines to anyone 5 and up, but you must make an appointment.