Sacred Heart School in East Grand Forks is delaying the start of school until Thursday, September 10, due to COVID-19 among the staff.
According to Principal Blake Karas, one staff member tested positive for COVID-19, but several other staff were in close contact during teacher workshops and must quarantine through September 9. “Unfortunately, we do have to delay the start of school,” said Karas. “We had a staff member test positive for COVID-19, which then through the tracing through Polk County Public Health and Grand Forks Public Health indicated several of our teachers through workshops and different occasions were identified as close contacts. Close contact is defined as being within six feet for 15 minutes or greater. So, we had to have eight other staff members quarantined for a said period of time. We have most of those people returning on Thursday for the start of school. We are still going to start school with three staff members that are teaching from home, but we’ll be able to make due. When we have nine staff members out, it’s hard to start. We find it very important for younger grades and all kids to have their homeroom teacher there on the first day of school.”
Karas said the first two days would be treated like snow days with the possibility of being made up via distance learning during future snow days this winter. “In-person education has been our plan since mid-June,” said Karas. “The plans changed, although the format hasn’t. We’ve found that in-person is the format that is best for getting the most potential out of our students. We want to do that as long as possible, and we decided to take these two days off the calendar for our students. With the possibility of adding them back on when we have our snow days when we typically close school now with our newfound technology and staff development last spring and early this year, we are able to deliver content and curriculum even on snow days. We’ll treat these first two days as if they are snow days where we’re not having any type of educational experience for our students, and we’ll start the school year on Thursday, September 10.
