This article by Alex Hanson was published by the Valley News on Sept. 14.
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – A student at Hartford High School has tested positive for Covid-19, school Superintendent Tom DeBalsi told the school community in a pair of letters on Sunday, but state health officials said the case was sufficiently isolated that school could proceed as planned on Monday.
“The professionals we consulted with from the Department of Health reviewed the potential risk factors for others at the high school that may have come into contact with the student who tested positive,” DeBalsi wrote in a letter to the school community Sunday evening. “Based on this review, the Department of Health did not identify any ongoing risk or any need for further intervention or contact tracing at this time. They also indicated that the strategies that we have in place, including our hybrid schedule that allows for our students to be physically distanced in our classrooms, greatly minimize the risk for close contact, as they define it.”
DeBalsi’s email communications furnish a timeline: The school district learned of the positive test on Saturday evening. The student’s physician reported the positive test to the Vermont Department of Health. The school was “cleaned and disinfected … per Health Department guidance.”
School officials spoke with state health officials in a conference call Sunday “to make sure we had done everything possible to provide for the safety of our students and staff and to plan for any additional steps we should take as students and staff returned to school tomorrow.”
DeBalsi urged people in the school community to “stay vigilant in our social distancing, wearing cloth face masks and having staff and students with any symptoms stay home.”
“While we certainly had hoped, for many reasons, not to have a positive test, this was not unanticipated,” DeBalsi wrote. “We have followed the Department of Health guidelines in our planning and have followed their protocols over the weekend. We hope that this follow-up email provides some comfort for those who we know are anxious.”
Hartford High is not the only Vermont school to report a case of Covid-19 over the weekend. Crossett Brook Middle School, in Duxbury, moved to remote learning this week after two students, a fifth grader and a seventh grader, tested positive. “Due to the number of students and staff that will be required to quarantine, Crossett Brook will not be open for in-person instruction this week,” Harwood Unified Union School District Superintendent Brigid Nease wrote Sunday in an email to the school community.
Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.
