STURGIS, S.D. – The Meade School Board will meet again Monday in special session to determine if they want to develop a new policy concerning quarantine of close contacts.
That follows this week’s regularly scheduled meeting in which board members learned about the difficulties about how to quarantine students who have been exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.
Superintendent Don Kirkegaard says the real issue is contact tracing and quarantine. He says high school administrators spent part of the weekend and all day Monday making calls to parents to let them know their student had been in close proximity to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
South Dakota Secretary of Health Kim Malsom-Rysdon discusses the situation.
“The Department of Health is continuing to do contact tracing around close contacts of school positive cases. Schools are opting to help us with that process by identifying potential contacts. You know, school personnel are talking about the time that it takes, but it has been a very helpful process for our staff.”
Malsom-Rysdon says it’s a collaborative process.
“The way the process works is, if schools are helping us to identify those potential close contacts in a school setting, they produce a list of names, we walk through that list with them to make sure we understand the cirumstances. We then do the contact tracing to let those individuals know. Some schools are opting to alert people that may be considered a close contact to be proactive, and we support that. The process we are working on right now is how to close that loop so schools understand when the contact notifications have been complete.”
Sturgis Brown High School Principal Pete Wilson says it’s the new normal for schools all across the state.
As of Tuesday, the Meade School District had 13 active COVID-19 positive cases. Seven are at the high school level, Five are at the middle school level and one case is at the elementary school level.
