Mimicking wider trends in Alachua County, COVID-19 cases in the county’s public schools are up this week.
There are 21 student and 16 staff cases reported in ACPS since Aug.17 — a jump of nine students and a staff member since Monday. That leaves 13 schools with reported active cases across the district. Student enrollment numbers across the three learning options are now available for the first 10 days of school and show a trend of increasing student enrollment across the county. Free meal distribution sites were reduced this week.
Now, active cases are across elementary, middle and high schools in the county, as well as an active case in the district office and Manning Center, an administrative building, according to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Staff at Chiles and Hidden Oak Elementary Schools tested positive for COVID-19. Students at Foster, Irby, Littlewood, Terwilliger and Wiles Elementary Schools also tested positive.
There are staff cases at Fort Clarke and Hawthorne Middle Schools. Students at Bishop, Hawthorne and Kanapaha also have the virus.
Buchholz High School now has four active cases of the virus. Newberry had one student test positive.
About 140 ACPS staff and students were placed in isolation, including four elementary classrooms, ACPS spokesperson Jackie Johnson wrote in an email. Some were already allowed to return if they tested negative on the ninth day after their last exposure to the virus.
ACPS requested money from the Alachua County Commission to cover additional technology purchases and COVID-19-related materials, such as personal protective equipment and teacher training, according to a letter from ACPS Superintendent Karen Clarke. ACPS hopes to receive more than $13 million.
Numbers for each learning model during the first 10 days of school are now available. Johnson said numbers were changing daily. For instance, she said that if a student switched from brick-and-mortar to Digital Academy and another student from Digital Academy to brick-and-mortar, the change would not be reflected in the data.
Three of the meal pick up locations closed this week, bringing the current total of sites to 24. The Your Choice Fresh website keeps an updated list of distribution centers.
There was a car accident involving a school bus with no children on board and a bus fire outside of Lincoln Middle School this week. No children were on board.
Free flu immunizationswill be available for students, including those in Digital Academy, beginning Oct. 1. Students can be given FluMist, an immunization misted through the nose, if parents fill out a consent form.
