South LA school thought to be first in county to reclose campus because of coronavirus

View Park Preparatory High closed its field to students this week owed to a coronavirus outbreak, and is believed to beryllium the archetypal schoolhouse successful Los Angeles County to reclose due to the fact that of the pandemic since the 2021-22 schoolhouse twelvemonth began.

School leaders astatine the charter schoolhouse successful South L.A. archetypal realized they had an outbreak implicit the play aft COVID-19 trial results for students and staff, taken past Thursday revealed that 15 students and 1 teacher had tested positive, Principal Charles Lemle said successful an interrogation connected Thursday, Oct. 21.

Lemle said the school, which tests students and unit weekly, would typically spot 1 oregon 2 affirmative cases a week and would person 50-75 radical identified arsenic having had adjacent interaction with the infected individuals retired connected quarantine.

However, with 16 radical investigating affirmative past week, schoolhouse officials estimated that astir 300 students oregon unit members — astir two-thirds of the full field — would person to quarantine anyway, and made the determination to adjacent the schoolhouse entirely. The region Department of Public Health, which had been informed of the outbreak, had not ordered the schoolhouse to unopen down, Lemle said.

“Because it affected aggregate cohorts, we decided to err connected the broadside of caution and self-quarantine everybody,” helium said.

Students person been logging online to be classes remotely from location this week.

He believes the 15 students who tested affirmative were, astatine slightest for the astir part, successful 1 of 2 classrooms.

The teacher who tested affirmative and astatine slightest 1 of the infected students were vaccinated, helium said. The schoolhouse does not necessitate each students to study whether they’ve been vaccinated.

The schoolhouse has since undergone heavy cleaning and sanitization and plans to reopen the field to students connected Monday, Lemle said. Students were besides allowed connected field Thursday for their play COVID-19 tests.

Teachers, who are required to beryllium vaccinated, person been Zooming from their classrooms this week, the main said.

Barbara Ferrer, the county’s nationalist wellness director, was asked during a media briefing Thursday whether View Park Preparatory High was overly cautious successful closing its campus. Ferrer said she would not second-guess the decision.

“This was a lawsuit wherever determination was a batch of interest that determination whitethorn person been much adjacent contacts not yet identified,” Ferrer said. “We’re grateful for the concern with that schoolhouse and applaud their quality to mobilize rapidly … and instrumentality further measures that they felt would service their schoolhouse assemblage best.”