Puyallup School District’s COVID-19 cases increase as more kids return to the classroom
The Puyallup School District has had more students and staff directed to quarantine for COVID-19 cases than ever before as all grades return to the classroom.
According to the most recent district data, there have been 16 COVID-19 reported cases from the weeks of Feb. 29 and March 5. A reported 107 students and 44 staff members have been directed to quarantine in that time, due to their close proximity to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.
The school district recorded three COVID-19 cases and 15 staff and students quarantined the week of Feb. 12, and six COVID-19 cases and 12 staff and students the week of Feb. 29.
Director of Communications and Public Engagement Sarah Gillispie said the increase in positive cases is relative to the number of staff and students onsite. The district counts about 16,000 students, or 72 percent of the student population, and the majority of staff as being on campus.
“We remain aggressive in our health and safety protocols to mitigate transmission in schools,” she said.
All grades have returned to the classroom as of March 2.
Elementary students returned to in-person instruction in mid-January. K-1 and special education students attend five days a week and second to sixth grades are at two days a week.
Secondary students have been broken into four “cohorts with two half-days of in-person learning every other week. Junior high school — or grades seventh, eighth, and ninth — began on Feb. 16. Students in grades 10-12 have been in-person for almost two weeks.
The district has seen more cases than the county’s largest school district, Tacoma Public Schools, where they have reported a maximum of 2 cases per week since the beginning of the year. Kindergarten through third grade students have returned to TPS, and fourth graders are expected to return March 15.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department reports one outbreak of the coronavirus across all school districts in the “all other regions” category as of March 11. An outbreak is defined as two or more cases in a shared location in the last 28 days.
“We include regions with only 1 outbreak in the ‘All other regions’ category. This helps balance transparency of location and patient confidentiality,” the health department website said.
The district requires masks on all campuses and buses, and everyone entering a school building must submit a daily health screening form.
Staff check students’ temperatures when they enter the classroom. Students are expected to help teachers with the increased disinfection of surfaces throughout the day.
Voluntary free rapid testing is available to staff and high school athletes.
Puyallup Education Association president Karen McNamara could not be reached for comment on the case count.
The school district also held its first in-person board meeting in a year on March 1. The school district confirmed that someone at the meeting was diagnosed with COVID-19.
“We can confirm, however, that our reasoning to move the board meeting to a virtual session was due to technology issues involving the effectiveness of our streaming and sound quality,” Gillispie said. “The health department did not advise us to move the board meeting back to a virtual format based-off this exposure.”
