The positivity rate is now at 7.1% in the State of Minnesota as communicated to us at the Stearns County Public Health Zoom conference last week. In the latest comparable numbers to last year's metrics, we are now at 43 down slightly from 51 last week. As noted in the last two messages this is just a number to use in comparison to last year. It gives us an idea of where we are at but it is not the only statistic we will use to make any decisions.
We have been working with our Admin Team and communicating with the School Board to develop a Masking Matrix. We need to understand that something has to be done between where we are at now to the possibility of going to E-Learning for a period of time. The first thing that people will assume is that we would go to a mask mandate for the rest of the year. This would be highly unlikely. The mask mandate would only go into effect if we had a 3% positivity rate in either our primary (K-5) or secondary (Grades 6-12) levels. We would then only do the mask mandate for 2 weeks. However, if we had a 5% positivity rate at either of our levels we would go to a mask mandate until it dropped below 3%. Once again, this is not a mask mandate for the rest of the year. It would only be used to slow down the transmission of the virus as a stop-gap before the district would have to go to E-Learning.
Here are the positivity rates for the first three weeks.
Week 1 - 1
Week 2 - 4
Week 3 - 7
There will be a School Board Working meeting at Elem Media on Wednesday (9/22) at 6:30 p.m. The School Board will take public input starting at 6:30 for 30 minutes. The regular Working Meeting will begin after the public input. The only agenda item to discuss at the Working meeting will be the Masking Matrix discussed above.
Get Vaccinated
Wear a Mask
Social Distance when possible
Stay Home If you are sick
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