In a letter sent to families associated with Soldotna High School on Tuesday night, principal Tony Graham declared that a person, only noted a “student or staff member,” tested positive for COVID-19. He noted that the school will remain open, as he is “confident that everything that can be done is being done to keep our school safe.”
Correspondence from Soldotna High noted that on September 22, they learned of a positive case of COVID-19 in the school. However, staff and students were advised to not stay home, but to follow the good practice of regularly monitoring for symptoms of COVID-19. The message also noted that parents of all students known to have close contact with people with COVID-19 have been notified and instructed to keep their children home. Staff who were in close contact have also been instructed to quarantine.
Pegge Erkeneff of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District told KSRM News on Wednesday that the district’s decision to keep the school open was done so because that this is the correct protocol in the district’s mitigation plan, and that everyone involved should be confident in the process: “This is a great learning opportunity for everybody to understand what happens. One of the things I’m really proud of is all of the mitigation plans that are put into place to keep student groups small, wearing masks, and everybody being able to go backwards in time, if we have to, and figure out who was where, what contact might have been had.”
She said the response was quick: “We did contact tracing in the school, and so we’re able to identify anybody, we know what the risk is, and we’ve looked at it, and there’s not an outbreak. So, if there was an outbreak that was happening, that might cause a school to be closed, or if we had to do a lot of contact tracing and it wasn’t done yet, and so we weren’t sure there was exposure, to avoid potential further exposure, we might close schools for a day while contact tracing is happening. At this time, we have a positive case, contact tracing was done, everybody was contacted, and there’s a high level of confidence that the one positive case – that there isn’t a need to do any further closures of the school.”
She also addressed the fact that some in the community may want to know more details about individuals who test positive in-school, noting that it would violate HIPPA and FERPA laws: “We really are honoring the HIPPA and the FERPA laws that are in-place. So, people want to know who the person is, and the school district is not going to share that. A person might share it, but the school district won’t share that.”
Anyone with questions is invited to contact the school, or the local public health agency at (907) 335-3400.
