With almost a semester of learning under their belts, students and teachers are bracing for a trend upward in COVID-19 cases.
Following the Thanksgiving holiday, several schools saw an uptick in positive cases, which is likely to continue into January following Christmas.
“What I m seeing is there are a few more cases,” said superintendent of Catholic Schools Theresa Hall. “Not that they’re starting at our schools, but families are doing more activities in groups, which I feel is a cause for some of this growth.”
However, there have not been any schoolwide outbreaks and in-school transmissions are low, thanks to diligent efforts in mask-wearing, social distance, hand-washing and keeping groups isolated by classes or grades, Hall said. For the week of Nov. 30-Dec. 4, all Catholic schools in Arkansas reported the following to the Catholic Schools Office: