Toy Town Elementary Student reports COVID Symptoms as Pre-K Classrooms Temporarily Return to Remote Learning
In a letter to Winchendon Public Schools families dated November 17, Superintendant Joan Landers disclosed that a Toy Town Elementary student had shown symptoms of a possible COVID-19 infection over the weekend, on November 15, and was being tested for the virus. The student had last been in a classroom on Friday, November 13.
Supt. Landers assured families that the building had been sanitized, "with a focus on those areas frequented by the symptomatic student." In the current hybrid model, students are kept in the same classroom and areas as much as possible and do not move freely around the building.
The following day, November 18, Supt. Landers sent a letter to families explaining that two Pre-Kindergarten classrooms were returning to all-remote learning as of Thursday, November 19 because of temporary lack of staff. Faculty members who had been exposed to COVID-19 in outside settings (not in school) were in quarantine, leaving insufficient staff to cover the Pre-K classrooms. They will return to school on Wednesday, December 2.
Ms. Landers emphasized that no identifying information about staff members will be released for confidentiality reasons. She urges that anyone with knowledge of the identities of school staff members to respect their rights by refraining from passing on that information via any form of communication.