PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — As more Aroostook schools shift to remote learning in response to the rise in COVID-19 cases, SAD 1 remains open for in-person instruction but with many new measures aimed at preventing the worst case scenario.
On Sept. 14, Superintendent Ben Greenlaw announced that the district now has one additional positive case each at Presque Isle High School, Pine Street Elementary School and Mapleton Elementary.
The latest news comes one day after the Maine CDC deemed Presque Isle High School an outbreak due to having three positive cases. Additional cases have been reported in the past week at all schools except Zippel Elementary School, but all remain open for in-person classes.
In response, SAD 1 is implementing a pool testing program, which is voluntary and requires permission from a students’ parents. Pooled testing aims to identify COVID-19 cases early by testing many samples together, a method the state Department of Education has recommended for school classrooms.
“This program will take a few weeks to set up,” Greenlaw said. “I will be sending out additional information on the pooled testing program in the next week or so.”
Starting Monday, all SAD 1 students who ride on school buses will sit alone instead of with one other student and more distancing will be required during meals and snack periods, when students often take mask breaks.
SAD 1 is also creating a COVID-19 dashboard on its website to provide daily information on active cases, students and staff in quarantine and related information. Currently the dashboard is reporting six positive cases at PIHS and 133 people in quarantine. Pine Street ranks second for quarantines, with 91 people, despite having only three positive cases.
Many of the high school students in quarantine are girls varsity soccer players. All games originally scheduled for this week have been postponed, Greenlaw said. The players were exposed to a person on an opposing team who is now COVID-19 positive.
“My goal [in creating the dashboard] is to reduce the frequency of memos from my office while continuing to provide the information to the community,” Greenlaw said.
Thus far SAD 1 has avoided a move to remote learning partly due to high vaccination rates among staff members, though only around half the eligible student population is fully vaccinated.
