Two weeks after switching to hybrid, 19 students, 42 staff at Algonquin-based Community School District 300 have tested positive for COVID-19

Since Algonquin-based Community School District 300 started providing hybrid learning just more than two weeks ago, 19 students and 42 staff have tested positive for COVID-19, Superintendent Fred Heid said at a virtual school board meeting Tuesday.

Of the 42 employees to test positive, 17 were school-based staff working on district premises and many of those 17 called in sick as they developed symptoms or realized they may have been exposed, Heid told the school board Tuesday evening.

“They were presently quarantined, so they didn’t have any direct contact with their peers,” Heid said, adding that the cases were self-reported.

Upward of 80 staff working in various roles at District 300 have had to quarantine since school reopened to staff on Jan. 4, Heid said. This includes custodians, buildings and grounds staff, clerical staff, administrative assistants, school-based administrators and teachers, among others.

District 300 has 19,378 total students and 2,078 total staff, according to its website. The numbers Heid provided at Tuesday’s meeting were from Jan. 4 through Jan. 22. School buildings reopened to students Jan. 11.

“People are quarantined for two reasons,” Heid said. “They’ve either tested positive or they have been in close contact with someone else who has tested positive.”

As a precautionary measure, a total of 137 students have had to quarantine, as they exhibited COVID-19-like symptoms during daily screenings at school, Heid said. An additional 103 students have had to quarantine because they were in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

“The more students we catch in a daily screener, the better our processes are, and more assurances we can provide our staff and our families that we’re doing the best we can to pull students out of the population ... who may have COVID-like symptoms,” Heid said.

According to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard, eight staff tested positive and 17 were quarantined during the week of Jan. 17 through Jan. 23. During this time period last week, 14 students tested positive, 64 were quarantined because of close contact and 102 were quarantined because of suspected COVID-19 cases.

To distinguish between flu and cold symptoms and COVID-19 symptoms, District 300 began offering antigen testing with the BiNaxNOW rapid testing system.

The test is voluntary. Students with COVID-19 symptoms who are sent home can schedule an appointment through the school nurse to be tested.

As of last week, 113 students and their families have volunteered to be tested, Heid said. Of those, 102 students had negative tests and as of Tuesday, BinaxNOW confirmed 13 positive cases among students.

Heid said while a high number of students are being sent home because the district’s daily screenings are working, a large percentage also are being released to return back to school because they had a negative COVID-19 test, were symptom-free and were feeling well.

Heid touched on this testing in a letter sent to families last week, where he said the district continues to have instances where students are sent to school or arrive on campus with COVID-19-like symptoms.

“Our daily screener has done a good job identifying these students and they were subsequently sent home by the school nurse,” Heid said in the letter, adding that the BinaxNOW test quickly evaluated the students. “Unfortunately, several of these students have tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in having to quarantine other students as a result.”

Heid wrote that it is imperative for students to not ride a bus, or attend school, if they are exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms or if they have been exposed to someone with the virus.