For now, State College Area School District will remain open for in-person classes.
With COVID-19 cases continuing to climb locally — though not in State College schools — the district appeared earlier this week to be on the brink of moving to entirely remote instruction as it neared thresholds for closing identified in its health and safety plan.
But in a message to families on Wednesday afternoon, Superintendent Bob O’Donnell said in-school learning will continue as the district re-evaluates its parameters for closing.
‘[I]t’s safe to say that we are taking it day-by-day right now,’ O’Donnell wrote.
‘Moving forward, despite the rise in cases, the district is staying open for now. As I expressed yesterday, if our schools are still safe — which we still believe they are — we are committed to providing in-person learning for as long as we can. This is consistent with the advice we’ve received today from the state Department of Health, as they view our status within the moderate range, giving us the option to be in-school or remote. For clarity, the parameters of our own health and safety plan are more conservative than those from the health department.’
About 73% of district families opted for in-school learning this fall, with the remainder selecting remote and Virtual Academy options
The district’s health and safety plan, approved in July, has multiple thresholds for consideration of moving to district-wide remote learning, including 50-75 new COVID-19 cases over a seven-day period within within SCASD zip codes and 80-120 new cases in Centre County over the same period.
With Wednesday’s record-high increase of 47 new cases, there have now been 105 new positives over the past seven days in the SCASD zip codes and 108 countywide.
Most new cases over the past week and half seem to be the result of Penn State’s testing of both symptomatic and asymptomatic students.
SCASD has had no known cases among students, faculty and staff.
‘Our main rationale for staying open is that we still have no known cases in our district — a testament to how well our students, faculty and staff are following our health and safety plan,’ O’Donnell wrote From the information we have, it’s our belief that most of the new cases in the past two days are Penn State students, and we know under the university’s protocols, these individuals are likely in isolation.’
The State College Area School Board meets at 7 p.m. today. O’Donnell will ask the board to allow the administration to reevaluate protocols and bring an updated plan that ‘will better reflect the status of COVID-19 in our community,’ to a special meeting next week.
Tonight’s school board meeting can be viewed live on C-NET Education channel 98 and via Zoom.
