Covid-19 hits CG-Belgium schools

A few cases of Covid-19 in the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District has put as many as 80 students and staff in quarantine.

Supt. Chad Brakke said six combined students and staff members have contracted the coronavirus, two of which have returned to school.

After some cases were found last week, more people at the high school tested positive over the weekend.

The virus, Brakke said, did not spread at school. The district does two temperature checks per day and follows other protocols to slow the spread of germs.

“It’s been events in the community or after-school activities,” Brakke said in a video on the district’s website. In an interview, he mentioned a wedding and extra-curricular activities.

The district has used class lists, discussion with teachers and in some cases video footage to do contact tracing, which involves figuring out  who was within six feet of anyone who tested positive for a cumulative of 15 minutes over a 24-hour period.

For those not experiencing symptoms, the district does contact tracing 48 hours since the positive test. For those with symptoms, the district goes back 48 hours from when the symptoms started. Those guidelines, Brakke said, come from the Centers for Disease Control through local health departments. The proximity and time are what counts, he said.

“Some parents have been really surprised that masks do not matter. Again, that’s not our decision. It’s the six feet within that 15 minutes,” he said in a video on the district’s website.

Students at the elementary and middle schools are in cohorts, but it still can be challenging to identify which students are close to each other, which can result in entire classes being quarantined.

The high school doesn’t have cohorts due to the nature of students’ schedules, so the district looks at who sat near each other.

Some classrooms in the district, Brakke said, are not big enough to allow for six feet between students.

Families were notified through phone calls and letters if their children were in close contact of someone who tested positive.

Students who stay home still attend school online. The district had offered an online option since school started, and about 100 students, or 10% of the district’s enrollment, chose to attend online. As a result of the recent positive cases, more students have requested to learn online.

“With our model, we’re still able to function since our students can attend virtually,” he said.

Families who choose the online option are asked to stay online until the end of the quarter.

“It’s hard when people are bouncing back and forth,” Brakke said.

In cases in which a teacher is out of school, a substitute is put into the classroom to help while the teacher runs class online from home. Some teachers, Brakke said, were already teaching from home since the start of school, most due to contact tracing.

Of the district’s fall extracurricular activities, only the volleyball team has been affected so far. It won’t play a match until at least Oct. 15, which means it will miss the Big East Conference tournament.

“We’re trying to see if this kind of ends or if we continue to have cases,” Brakke said.

The district is far from considering to operate school 100% online. Brakke said guidance suggests 30% of the school to have positive cases — not just due to contact tracing — before determining to close.

The Sheboygan County Health Department, he said, suggested letting it know when 10% of students are infected. All of the district’s three schools are in Cedar Grove, just north of the Ozaukee County border.

As a result of the increased workload in notifying families and working on spreadsheets from Sheboygan and Ozaukee counties, where the district’s students live, the School Board at an emergency meeting last Friday approved hiring a part-time nurse for up to 28 hours per week.

The district’s nurse works eight hours on Wednesdays and has another job, which doesn’t allow her to increase her workload, Brakke said.

Trying to reach all affected families over a weekend to notify them before school resumes on Monday, he said, takes a large effort.

“It’s really taken a lot of administrative time,” he said.

Beyond that, a medical degree is required to access the Wisconsin Disease Electronic Surveillance System, Brakke said, which houses the list of the state’s positive cases.

 The district, Brakke said, hasn’t seen a huge spike in illness compared to a normal year.