By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
As students went back to school Tuesday after the Labor Day weekend, new quarantine guidelines went into place at Hays schools.
"As we have been working through this on a weekly basis and working with the Ellis County advisory group, [Jason Kennedy, Ellis County public health officer], hearing numbers from all the schools around, he felt like our numbers are surging to the point he needed to put something in place immediately to squash or decrease our numbers the best he could," Hays Superintendent Ron Wilson said Tuesday.
See a full copy of the new quarantine guidelines.
RELATED: 🎙17 new virus cases in Ellis Co.; Kennedy talks vaccine safety
Thomas More Prep-Marian also instituted the new COVID quarantine guidelines this week.
Wilson said Kennedy said he was concerned if local schools did not take mitigation efforts now, the community will see a surge in November that will be difficult to contain.
As of Wednesday, the district had 63 students and no staff in quarantine because of close contacts.
Twenty students and four staff members have tested positive and are in isolation. That is down from 29 staff and students in isolation as of last Friday.
"I would not say that our numbers are out of control," Wilson said. ... "It's high, but it's not unreasonable in terms of what we are going to expect from COVID."
A large percentage of the district's students have not been vaccinated either because they are too young to be vaccinated or their families don't feel comfortable with them receiving the vaccine.
The district started the school year without masks.
"I think there is a number out there that is reasonable to say we're going to have to do something different," Wilson said.
That benchmark has yet to be set. Wilson said he will be updating the Hays school board on COVID numbers and policies on Monday.
There will be a board work session at 11:30 a.m. Monday at Roosevelt Elementary School.
"Sometimes people are way more upset about masks and what they do to kids," Wilsons said. "But what bothers me as a superintendent is when we have kids that have to go home and can't be in school. To me, that is way more harmful than asking kids and staff to wear masks. ...
"That impacts students and it impacts families depending on how old they are and how sick they are," he said. ... "My goal is to keep kids in school."
USD 489 will not be offering remote learning this school year.
Wilson said not only were students not benefiting from that learning model, but it increased the strain on teachers
The district will be using Seesaw app at the elementary level and Canvas app at the middle school and high school to communicate assignments to students and parents.
"The thing that I am very proud of about our district in dealing with COVID is that none of the decisions we have made for over a year and a half have been based on fear," Wilson said. "We've based these decisions on what the numbers and the science are telling us about COVID."
He asked for everyone's help in continuing to mitigate the virus, including keeping children at home when they are sick.
"We are not going to deplete it to zero, but we can keep it under control," Wilson said of COVID.