The positivity rate is now at 6% in the State of Minnesota and 10% in Stearns County as communicated to us at the Stearns County Public Health Zoom conference last week. Although the Minnesota Department of Health has yet to provide information that is specific to counties and school districts, there is a website that does track this information. In comparable numbers to last year's metrics, we are now at 39.8 according to this website. However, because we had no transmission within our building we were able to transition to all in-person by the end of February last year. We will continue to monitor and trace any transmission within the building and notify parents accordingly.
With the numbers continuing to increase we were reminded by Stearns County Public Health to make sure to remind people to get vaccinated, wear a mask, social distance where possible and stay home if you do not feel well.
We have a new nurse starting today, her name is Jackie Hellermann. She is a graduate of Melrose High School and has worked for CentraCare for a number of years. She will be taking over for Janell Hoffman this year who has been filling in until Ms. Hellermann could start. Ms. Hoffman had been the former nurse here before she retired in 2020. I would like to publicly thank Ms. Hoffman for stepping in until Ms. Hellermann could start.
If you have any questions or concerns do not hesitate to contact me or any of the building principals.
Greg Winter, Superintendent: gwinter@isd740.org
Chad Doetkott, High School Principal cdoetkott@isd740.org
Robert Anderson, Middle School Principal randerson@isd740.org
Terryl Pearson, Elementary School Principal tpearson@isd740.org