1,200+ Tri-Cities students sent home in recent weeks to quarantine for COVID contacts

Nearly 6 percent of the students in a West Richland Middle School were sent home this week after coming in to close contact with a student with COVID.

About 40 students at Enterprise Middle School were close enough with the student who was last in class on Monday to require quarantining, according to the Richland School District COVID tracker and Communication Director Ty Beaver.

The middle school has about 660 students enrolled.

Last week, the district reported that more than 170 Hanford High School students were quarantined and learning virtually for a close contact incident.

But Richland isn’t alone in continuing to send students home.

As of May 3, Pasco added 130 more students to the 303 that were already quarantining last week. That includes 174 students from the two high schools.

As of April 30, Kennewick had 631 students quarantining at home. The number changes daily and is tracked by school nurses, said Robyn Chastain, the executive director of communications and public relations.

Some of the students in all the districts already have been allowed to return to classrooms.

The increase in the number of close contacts is largely driven by change from 6-feet of separation between students to 3-feet of separation, both school officials and the health district officials have said.

Under new rules adopted by all three school districts this week, close-contact students must be out of classes for at least seven days.

If they have a negative COVID test result toward the end of that period they can return. If they don’t get a test, they can come back after 10 days.

The Health District is continuing to recommend people exposed continue to monitor themselves for symptoms for a 14-day period.

Parents continue to have mixed reactions about the school quarantine rules. Some are saying that they continue to be too long.

While others believe the Tri-Cities districts moved too quickly to get students back into classrooms, and now are seeing the result of it.

While more students are being quarantined, the number of students and staff coming down with COVID at the schools is lower this week, according to the districts’ online dashboard reports.

The single case at Enterprise was the only one in the Richland district.

In Kennewick, the district reported 17 cases May 3-5, compared to 19 during the same period the week before.

Pasco schools reported seven cases May 3-4, compared to 18 the week before. Most of the cases were at Chiawana High School and Capt. Gray Elementary.

For Richland and Kennewick, the number of positive cases appears to be mirroring what the health district has reported for COVID cases in Tri-Cities in general. The new COVID case rate is the lowest in the last week, which might be a sign cases are plateauing.

Still, Franklin County cases continue to grow.

No outbreaks

While the number of students learning from home has increased, the Benton Franklin Health District believes COVID-19 is not being transmitted at the schools.

In the most recent Unified Situation Report, the district said it is not investigating any outbreaks inside schools. Though, they are helping schools process the larger than normal number of close contacts.

It’s the third week in a row that local schools have not seen any potential outbreaks, which are defined as two people passing the disease between each other at the facility.

The last reported outbreak came before most of the students had returned to school full-time, five days a week.

“Evidence continues to support that schools are not the primary source of COVID-19 transmission in the community and that there is not sustained transmission in schools,” according to the most recent letter to schools from Health Officer Dr. Amy Person.

Keith Pilgrim, a Richland parent with a daughter sent home from Hanford High to quarantine, said he feels the district should have reached out more to parents before deciding to return to five days a week.

This story was originally published May 6, 2021 at 2:07 PM.