Modesto’s Gregori High School campus closed for 14 days because of COVID-19 outbreak
Several staff members at Gregori High School have tested positive for COVID-19, Modesto City Schools announced Monday afternoon.
Employees at the northwest Modesto campus have reverted to working from home, and at-risk students who have been working in small-group cohorts there will return to distance learning for a period of 14 days.
No Gregori students have tested positive, the district said. Spokeswoman Becky Fortuna told The Bee on Monday evening that none of the staff members who tested positive had direct contact with the students in the on-campus learning hubs.
This is the first time MCS has had to close an entire campus since staff returned to schools during this coronavirus pandemic, district spokeswoman Krista Noonan said.
The school closure also applies to any athletics and cheer conditioning activities, which will cease until the campus reopens Monday, Oct. 26, Noonan said.
“Contact tracing on potential exposure has taken place, and those individuals who may have been exposed have been placed on quarantine,” Gregori Principal Derek Pendley said in a robocall that went out to Gregori families.
An email also was sent out, specific to families who had students on campus anytime from Oct. 5 to Oct. 9. It says the last date of known exposure on campus was Oct. 9.
There was no information on the number of employees or at-risk students who were on campus during the time an exposure could have occurred.
In an email to The Bee on Tuesday morning, Noonan said, “We’ve been rolling out the learning hubs since mid-September. As of this coming Wednesday, 10/14, there will be general education hubs at 33 of our school sites. We also have special education hubs at 10 of our sites and at Transitions. In total, we have 92 different cohorts of students, which represents around 1,100 at-risk students being helped in the hubs.”
She noted that the general education hubs are a maximum of 14 students (some are less due to room size constraints), and the special-education hubs are smaller, around seven students on average.
About 30 students had been on the Gregori campus in learning hubs, which started Thursday, Oct. 8.
While Gregori is physically closed, a deep cleaning and sanitization will be done, the district told families. Meals will continue to be distributed as scheduled and tech help will be open in the usual locations in the parking lot.
The voicemail to families says staff will still be available during the 14-day closure. Teachers will continue to provide instruction and office staff will provide support from home.
Neither the voicemail nor the email indicated that any staffers have fallen ill.
All office contact numbers and emails will be placed on the Gregori website, gregori.mcs4kids.com, as well as Facebook, the district says. “If you call the appropriate office, please leave a message and a Gregori staff member will return your call as soon as possible.”
Though all Modesto City Schools campuses remain closed to the general student population, the district “has been rolling out small groups of at-risk students in the Learning Hubs at various high school locations, as well as other schools throughout the district,” Noonan said in an email to The Bee. “These hubs are all small-group cohorts and they adhere to health and safety protocols and physical distancing/mask requirements.”
Pendley’s email to said to the families of those students, “it is very important that they continue to apply themselves to the lessons and engage with their teachers while they are distance learning.”
Monday evening, the Modesto City Schools Board of Education held a special workshop on its reopening plan and waiver application to bring back transitional-kindergarten through sixth-grade students to in-person learning in stable, small-group cohorts.
Gregori’s communications to families on Monday said that if a student develops COVID-like symptoms or a household member becomes sick, evaluation and testing should be done immediately.
“If your student does not have symptoms and they remain well, you can still check with your healthcare provider if you would like to schedule a COVID-19 test for them as a precaution,” the email says. “If you do not have a healthcare provider, additional FREE testing resources are available through Stanislaus County at http://schsa.org/publichealth/pages/corona-virus. Remember, your student must stay at home the full 14 days even if your COVID test is negative.”
The email reminds families that COVID-19 symptoms may include the following:
- Mild, coldlike symptoms
- Fever higher than 100.4 degrees
- Shortness of breath
- Runny nose
- Cough
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Loss of taste or smell
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 5:23 PM.
