Staff member at ORHS tests positive for COVID-19

A staff member who was at Oak Ridge High School on Friday has tested positive for COVID-19, Oak Ridge Schools said Sunday.

The school system learned of the positive diagnosis on Saturday.

“Having this report Saturday morning allowed us to implement a 24-hour closure so we could thoroughly disinfect the building on Saturday,” Superintendent Bruce Borchers said in a letter to families. A second disinfectant fogging of the full building occurred on Sunday, Borchers said.

It’s the sixth overall COVID-19 case in Oak Ridge Schools and the fifth since July 15.

The other cases since July 15 involved a staff member who had been at Jefferson Middle School and ORHS, 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.

In response to the most recent case, the school system has identified and contacted staff members who might have been in close contact with the staff member who tested positive and sought to learn what parts of the building they had visited, Borchers said.

He said all areas of the ORHS building that might have been infected have been “stringently cleaned.”

Staff members who might have been in close contact with anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 should contact their school administrators, Borchers said. Close contact can include being within six feet of an infected person for 10 minutes or longer.

The superintendent said administrators are operating under guidance from the new Communicable Disease Team, which has leaders from Oak Ridge Schools and the appropriate county health department.

Borchers said the school system continues to follow protocols that include confirming cases with the appropriate county health department, quickly and transparently communicating known possible COVID-19 exposures to any potentially affected people and their families, as well as to the broader school and Oak Ridge communities; and protecting the identity of the people involved.