Testing their plans

More than six weeks into the school year, area schools are dealing with their first cases within their day-to-day operation, but, so far at least, protocols for how to handle those situations have held and kept the buildings safe and operational.

Both Cambridge and Southwest Public Schools had their first cancellations of activities for this school year last week.

At Cambridge, the Trojans cancelled all activities starting on Thursday and continuing through this past Monday after the district received word of a confirmed positive from a student. Friday’s football and volleyball games with Hi-Line at Elwood were also cancelled on Wednesday morning.

Superintendent Greg Shepard said the district had word of four positive cases as of Monday morning and was expecting more.

"Last week we had one confirmed case and multiple more getting tested. We just wanted to take a step back and see where we were at," Shepard said. "I anticipate more, perhaps up to 12. We will continue to monitor and make sure we have no spread within the school, but so far, the cases appear to be standalones."

Southwest also cancelled 5425962 its trip to a volleyball triangular on Thursday as it had a pending test result it was waiting on. That test came back positive.

"We were fortunately in a position where we followed our protocol and we haven't had to quarantine anyone other than the staff member that tested positive and their family," Southwest Superintendent Todd Porter said. "But with our mask wearing and social distancing measures in place, we're not looking to cancel anything else, but we felt it was responsible to act with caution."

"We were fortunately in a position where we followed our protocol and we haven't had to quarantine anyone other than the staff member that tested positive and their family," Southwest Superintendent Todd Porter said. "But with our mask wearing and social distancing measures in place, we're not looking to cancel anything else, but we felt it was responsible to act with caution."

One local school district hasn’t had a confirmed case within the building of late, but made a change to its procedures about two weeks ago.

Elwood Public Schools now has a mask mandate within the building except for PE, recess or athletic practices.

“We had seen some instances where a school had to quarantine an entire elementary class or the entire high school,” Superintendent Daren Hatch said. “No one likes it, but we’re trying to keep the doors open as long as possible.”

Southern Valley superintendent Bryce Jorgenson said his district hadn’t had a case either, but with the health departments moving the risk dial to “High,” it triggered a mask mandate within the building by their protocols.

Neither Shepard nor Porter said the school districts were doing anything diff erent in terms of their day-to-day operations. Both said they were working with Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department, but that there are protocols in place to keep students and staff safe.

"The health department has been nothing but complimentary of our procedures and processes," Shepard said. "We're very comfortable with what we're doing and there is no concern about needing to do something different academically."

But Shepard did say there is concern about activities because of students' close proximity to each other for extended periods of time. Because of that, football and volleyball teams are wearing masks full-time and they're recommending that those team members do outside of school, too.

"We want our athletes to be safe and able to compete," Shepard said.

Porter said school administrators throughout the region and the conference talk with each other a great deal, including on conference calls with the health department each week. School protocols appear to be working in the building, but the districts can't control everything.

"It seems that the cases of the virus are not coming from inside the school, but it's coming from outside," Porter said.

Still, Cambridge has had great cooperation from its parents.

"I am extremely happy with our parents - they're monitoring their kids and getting them tested," Shepard said. "And they're communicating with us, which allows us to do the things we need to do. They're being very responsible."