Update, Friday, 3:30 p.m.:
The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District on Friday announced that eastern Kenai Peninsula schools in Seward and Moose Pass will also be closed next week.
Original Story:
Thirty Kenai Peninsula schools will remain closed next week due to the high number of COVID-19 cases in the borough.
Thirteen southern Kenai Peninsula schools and 17 central Kenai Peninsula schools will stay closed through at least Oct. 30, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District announced Thursday. Eastern Kenai Peninsula schools in Seward and Moose Pass are also closed, and the district said that a decision on whether in-person school can resume in that area will be made Friday.
Most of the district’s 42 schools were closed this week, and some have been closed for several weeks. Only seven schools in the district remain open, and they are at a low risk level, according to the announcement.
Schools close when the spread of the coronavirus in the community moves them to a high-risk category, district spokeswoman Pegge Erkeneff said.
The district determines the risk level of each school and region by tracking the actual 14-day case count and the seven-day trends in positive cases in the communities, which help indicate whether cases are trending up or down.
[An Anchorage elementary school librarian is delivering books to students using a borrowed van]
High-risk schools are closed to most in-person learning, but pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and high-needs special education students can still attend in-person classes.
Even with the majority of schools in the district partially closed, it still confirmed multiple positive cases this week because some kids and teachers remain in classrooms, Erkeneff said. She was not immediately able to provide exact data on the number of cases in the district.
Erkeneff said that the district did locate close contacts in its schools this week.
There have not been any outbreaks in Kenai schools, defined as two or more cases in a school that are related, she said.
“There’s just widespread community spread,” Erkeneff said. “So people are finding out they need to quarantine, because of a contact they had from somewhere in the community or maybe their own family, or they’ve tested positive.”
The southern Kenai Peninsula schools that will remain closed are:
· Chapman School
· Fireweed Academy
· Homer Flex School
· Homer High School
· Homer Middle School
· Kachemak Selo School
· McNeil Canyon Elementary School
· Nikolaevsk School
· Ninilchik School
· Paul Banks Elementary School
· Razdolna School
· Voznesenka School
· West Homer Elementary School
The central Kenai Peninsula schools that will remain closed are:
· Kaleidoscope Charter School
· K-Beach Elementary School
· Kenai Alternative School
· Kenai Central High School
· Kenai Middle School
· Mountain View Elementary School
· Nikiski Middle-High School
· Nikiski North Star Elementary School
· Redoubt Elementary School
· River City Academy
· Skyview Middle School
· Soldotna Elementary School
· Soldotna High School
· Soldotna Montessori Charter School
· Sterling Elementary School
· Tustumena Elementary School