2nd Tri-Cities school district launches online COVID-19 tracker
Richland is the second Tri-Cities school district to add a COVID-19 activity dashboard for parents, employees and the public.
The coronavirus tracker on the school district website includes:
- Classrooms or buildings closed based on the recommendation of the Benton Franklin Health District because of COVID activity. The district said that information will be updated daily.
- Confirmed positive cases in students and staff who have been in a school or other district facility. Those numbers will be updated weekly.
Thursday, the site showed that three classrooms have been closed for cleaning so far. Two closed at Hanford High on Oct. 19 and one at Sacajawea Elementary on Wednesday, Oct. 28.
And, it showed 11 district employees have tested positive since late August — 5 of them had been in a district facility, including two people last week and three this week.
This was the first week that Richland preschool and kindergarten students began returning in-person to classrooms part of the week.
They will start first- and second-graders the week of Nov. 4, and the remaining elementary students will return on Nov. 12
No date is set for returning middle and high school students.
The Richland district has 14,000 students.
Kennewick schools
The Kennewick School District was the first to post a COVID report card on its website to keep parents and others up to date on COVID infections reported in school facilities.
In all, 26 employees and students have tested positive since the end of August — 11 of the cases have come in the past two weeks.
Officials say they follow thorough cleaning procedures after someone tests positive and they continue to encourage parents to check their children for illness before sending them to school.
Elementary students returned to partial in-person classes last week.
The school board voted to delay the return of middle and high schools students until Feb. 2 but it plans to re-evaluate that date at its Nov. 18 meeting.
The Kennewick district has 2,450 teachers and 18,000 students.
Pasco schools
The Pasco School District has not said if it plans to add an online case tracker.
Pasco is bringing back preschoolers through second-graders on Nov. 9. The rest of the elementary students will return to classrooms on Nov. 16.
Middle and high school students could start as early as Dec. 3 as long as starting the elementary schools are successful and community health conditions support opening up.
Earlier this month, Pasco reported that 17 staff members had tested COVID positive since the beginning of the school year.
The Pasco School District has about 19,000 students.
Masks for schools
Lourdes Medical Center and Trios Health announced Thursday they are donating 3,000 total cloth masks to the Kennewick, Pasco and Richland school districts.
The districts plan to use the masks for students who do not have their own masks. The cloth masks are washable and reusable.
“We are grateful to be able to help support our local school district’s efforts to protect their staff and students. We hope these masks will help employees and students feel safer as they go about their school day and feel confident that they are helping to protect others as well,” said Chad Pew, Lourdes Health Interim CEO.
Requiring masking of employees, patients and visitors, and encouraging the wearing of masks in public is “one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of COVID-19 until we have a vaccine,” said said John Solheim, Trios Health CEO.
The donation does not impact the supply of masks or other PPE needed by medical workers, they said.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 5:43 PM.