COVID-19 cases have been reported at Woodland Elementary School and Jefferson Middle School, school officials said this week.
The COVID-19 case at Woodland Elementary School was reported Thursday morning, and the case at Jefferson Middle School was reported Friday morning.
They are the seventh and eighth overall COVID-19 cases in Oak Ridge Schools and the sixth and seventh since July 15.
Oak Ridge Schools learned Thursday that a person at Woodland Elementary School had tested positive for COVID-19, Superintendent Bruce Borchers said in a letter to families on Thursday. The person has not been at Woodland since Friday, July 31, because he or she quarantined after a possible non-school exposure, Borchers said.
The potential exposure to students or staff was “extremely low,” the superintendent said.
The next day, Friday, the school system learned that a person at Jefferson Middle School had tested positive for COVID-19. The person has not been at Jefferson since Tuesday because he or she quarantined after a possible non-school exposure, Borchers said in a letter to families.
All students and staff who had close contact with the person within a 48-hour period before he or she was tested have been contacted and advised to quarantine, Borchers said.
The two letters do not identify the two people who tested positive or say what their symptoms are, if any.
In both cases, Borchers said the school system appreciates the precautions the two people “took out of concern for others and for making the decision to report this situation to school personnel to ensure accurate information was provided to our students, families, and staff.”
He said Oak Ridge Schools will do its best to ensure a safe environment while educating students.
“When we can work quickly and collaboratively with the Tennessee Department of Health to identify and advise ill and exposed students and staff, we can avoid the need to close our schools,” Borchers said.
He said the school system follows COVID-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Tennessee Department of Health.
The other COVID-19 cases in Oak Ridge Schools since July 15 involved a staff member at Oak Ridge High School, 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.
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