School district briefly ramps up COVID-19 measures

McCOOK, Neb. — Fogging classrooms and reinstalling plastic glass shields were implemented for a short time in September at McCook Public Schools, due to an uptick in active COVID-19 cases in the district.

Those measures and other protocols were shared at a brief executive committee meeting held earlier this month, Superintendent Grant Norgaard told the McCook School Board meeting Monday night.

School board members are appointed to the various committees by the board president, or can request to be on a certain committee. Members of the executive committee are Brad Hays, Teresa Thomas and Tom Bredvick. The executive committee meets on an as-needed basis, Norgaard said.

On Sept. 3, according to the school district’s “COVID-19 Tracker,” there were 21 active COVID-19 cases in the school district, with 17 of those at the McCook Junior High. McCook Elementary and Central Elementary also had a few active cases with none at the high school.

Norgaard said Monday night that he felt an executive committee meeting was necessary to explain what procedures the district implemented in light of the sudden uptick. When cases mounted at the junior high, protocols were amped up and parents were notified of this through robocalls and letters, he said.

There is flexibility in school district’s mitigation practices to reduce the spread of the virus in the school district by taking actions other than implementing a mask mandate, Norgaard told the board. Actions he cited included being more proactive in contact tracing, temperature checks, fogging classrooms and separating students with plexiglass shields.

“The impact to school is different this time,” he told the board. “We’re trying to think things through and not shoot from the hip.”

There is no definite benchmark in the district’s COVID-19 protocol for when masks would be required, he told the Gazette on Tuesday. Rather, if a school building had 10-15% of its population with COVID, an executive committee meeting would be called of building administrators and the aforementioned board members, to discuss COVID-19 policies that would be stepped up, he said.

COVID-19 policies have been scaled back at the junior high due to declining cases. As of today, there are 14 active cases in the entire school district with 27 recovered, according to the daily updated “COVID-19 Tracker” at mccookbison.org. There are seven active cases at the junior high, with 21 recovered and four active cases at the high school, with zero recovered. McCook Elementary has two active cases, with five recovered and at Central Elementary, two active cases and one recovered.

The school district also uses “Risk dials” that measure the number of COVID cases in each school building. McCook Junior High is currently at elevated, McCook Elementary and McCook Senior High, moderate and Central Elementary, low.