Oak Ridge Schools staff member tests positive for COVID-19

Note: This story was updated at 5 p.m.

An Oak Ridge Schools staff member who has been at Jefferson Middle School and Oak Ridge High School has tested positive for COVID-19, the school system said Wednesday.

It’s the fifth overall COVID-19 case in Oak Ridge Schools and the fourth in the past two weeks, since July 15.

The schools learned of the positive test result for the staff member on Wednesday. The staff member, who has not been publicly identified, had been at JMS and ORHS last Friday.

Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers said the staff member has not been in the building since Friday, started a voluntary quarantine, and received a positive test result Wednesday morning.

Borchers said all areas of the JMS and ORHS buildings that might have been infected have been cleaned since the potential exposure.

All staff members and their families who might have been close to the staff member have been contacted individually to identify the specific areas of the JMS and ORHS buildings that they visited, Borchers said.

The other recent cases, which were all since July 15, involved a staff member at JMS, a student at ORHS band camp, and an instructor at ORHS band camp. In an earlier case in April, a staff member who had been volunteering at the school system’s food distribution sites tested positive for COVID-19.

Some Oak Ridge students started returning to classes on Wednesday, including at the high school, although the specifics of the return to classes vary for the elementary schools, middle schools, and high school. Classes for students at Jefferson Middle School will resume on Thursday.