A classroom at Park Orchard Elementary School has been closed Monday, Nov. 1 by the Kent School District due to COVID-19.
All other classrooms at Park Orchard, 11010 SE 232nd St., remain open, according to the district’s COVID-19 School Status Map. The school contacts all impacted families about the closure.
Park Orchard is the fifth classroom at five schools that the district has closed due to the pandemic since classes started Aug. 26. The other classroom closures were at Daniel, Covington, Panther Lake and Meridian elementary schools. The district has not had to shut down any entire school.
The district considers closure of a classroom after consultation with Public Health — Seattle & King County when:
• Two or more students or staff in the same room/area test positive for COVID-19
• The cases have symptoms that start within 14 days of each other
• The cases are not associated with one another in another setting (household, club, etc.)
A COVID-19 outbreak in a school is considered when the following have been met:
• There are two or more COVID-19 cases among students or staff
• The cases have a symptom onset or positive test result within a 14-day period of each other
• The cases are epidemiologically linked
• The cases do not share a household
• The cases are not identified as close contacts of each other in another setting during the investigation
If a full class needs to quarantine in response to COVID-19 transmission, then:
• Staff and families will be notified by phone, letter and/or email of the classroom closure
• Students will shift to the 100% remote model used during the 2020-21 school year
• Schedules will mirror current 2021-22 in-person schedules
• Teachers will have two days to transition to synchronous remote learning, and learning will begin online fully by the third day for impacted classrooms
• Classroom closures will typically last 14 days
Latest COVID-19 numbers
Since Oct. 1, the district has had 93 students with COVID-19, with 16 cases still active as of Nov. 1, according to the Kent School District COVID-19 Reporting Dashboard.
Twenty-three staff members have had COVID-19, with four active cases.
The district has more than 23,000 students at 43 schools.
The data table represents COVID-19 cases for students and staff in the district since Oct. 1. The date coincides with the transition to the new database being used by the district’s contact tracing staff hired and trained in September.
The district refreshes the dashboard every Monday by 10 a.m.
A case is a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis. Active cases are cases with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis within the infectious period for students/staff members.
The dashboard contains only cases recorded and reported starting Oct. 1. Students/staff that have had contact with a COVID-19 case but have not tested positive themselves are not included in the dashboard.
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