ELLISVILLE, Mo. — The new year has brought a new wave of COVID cases.
Staying safe is becoming especially challenging for our area schools.
The Rockwood Board of Education is meeting Tuesday night to debate the best plan of action for the district. The board is calling a special meeting to see if their COVID policy needs to be updated.
School officials are taking another look at the Rockwood Safe Together plan. The last update to the plan was made back on Dec. 17.
The latest plan called for masks to be recommended at all Rockwood buildings starting Jan. 18, the first day of the second semester.
According to the latest Rockwood Safe Together plan, students who have had close contacts with COVID but are deemed healthy don’t have to quarantine.
The district also made plans to stop sending out building-wide notifications of a positive COVID case. The board said close contacts of a person with COVID would be notified, and the district website would be updated with the latest COVID numbers.
The board said it’s time to take a second look at this plan because coronavirus cases are on the rise.
Last week, 548 students in the Rockwood School District tested positive for COVID, that’s a major increase compared to the 112 students who tested positive two weeks before.
Rockwood isn’t the only district re-evaluating COVID plans.
Starting Tuesday, Collinsville is switching its students to remote learning until Thursday during a district-wide “adaptive pause” to in-person learning.
Friday, Jan. 14 is a teacher institute day and Monday, Jan. 17 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. There are no classes on those days.
Students will learn on their district-issued chrome books from home and still be able to get lunch every day by pick-up or delivery on special routes.
Parents and students can pick up meals at the following Collinsville schools from 7 a.m. to noon:
- Collinsville High School (Back of School by Dock)
- Dorris Intermediate School
- Kreitner Elementary School
- Webster Elementary School (Back of School)
First Student school buses will deliver meals to designated neighborhoods using designated routes at no cost during remote learning days. You can find the district meal delivery schedule here.
The Rockwood school board is meeting virtually Tuesday at 8 p.m. The meeting will be streamed on the district’s YouTube channel.
The board said if officials make any changes to the COVID plan, those will be shared after the meeting.