Ringgold Middle School closing for week due to COVID

By Stacy Wolford

By ERIC SEIVERLING
eseiverling@yourmvi.com

The Ringgold School District on Wednesday announced it will close its middle school for more than a week due to an additional case of coronavirus being traced to the building.
In a letter to parents, acting Superintendent Randall Skrinjorich said the closure begins today and all students will transition to remote learning, also known as the district’s Option Two.
Skrinjorich said students should log into their classes via Moodle during their regular school hours. Teachers will begin remote instruction also today.
According to Skrinjorich, students will return to classes Oct. 26.
The decision to close the school came Wednesday afternoon after the district learned of another positive COVID case, which comes on the heels of the district learning on Saturday a middle school employee tested positive for COVID-19.
The district reported Saturday’s positive case did not warrant the state’s Department of Health to recommend closing the middle school.
But the additional positive case announced Wednesday resulted in the DOH recommending the middle school close for five to seven days.
The district did not provide information regarding the individual in Wednesday’s case, but did say the individual is not related to the previous positive COVID case.
“We recognize that information regarding the existence of positive cases can be unsettling and that people may have a desire to have detailed information about the person or persons involved,” Skrinjorich said. “Please remember, that privacy laws provide protection for those who are impacted by the COVID-19 and the district will continue to adhere to those laws.”
According to the Ringgold School Board’s approved Health and Safety Plan, the school is taking the following actions:
• Deep clean and disinfect locations visited by the individual(s) who test positive with COVID-19.
• Identify individual(s) who qualify as having had close contact with the infected individual(s).
• Communicate directly with all individuals identified as having had close contact with the individual(s) who tested positive for COVID-19.
“We’re acting out of an abundance of caution,” board President William Stein said. “You have to take definitive action to break the cycle of this thing. There’s a protocol about cleaning, about tracing and about quarantining that will have to be followed. The important thing for people to recognize is this thing is real. Across the country it’s spreading like wildfire.
“This is about keeping the kids and our staff safe. We’re doing everything we can to do that.”

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