At the end of the first week of classroom instruction in the Cobb County School District, nine of the 67 elementary schools have reported confirmed COVID-19 cases among students and staff.
At each of those nine schools, fewer than 10 cases have been reported, according to figures posted Friday on the CCSD website.
Five of the nine schools are in East Cobb, but more specific numbers for each school have not been disclosed.
The parents of roughly 60 percent of the district’s enrolled elementary students—or nearly 27,000 in all—chose what’s called the “face-to-face” option, after several weeks of all-online instruction to start the school year.
The schools that have reported confirmed cases to Cobb and Douglas Public Health include the following:
- Blackwell ES in East Cobb
- Eastvalley ES in East Cobb
- Milford ES in Marietta
- Nicholson ES in East Cobb
- Nickajack ES in Smyrna
- Pickett’s Mill ES in Acworth
- Powers Ferry ES in East Cobb
- Sanders ES in Austell
- Shallowford Falls ES in East Cobb
The case totals are combined for students and staff throughout the district. Before this week’s classroom return for K-5 and special-education students, CCSD indicated that 287 students and staff had tested positive for COVID-19 since July 1.
That overall number, which is updated on Fridays, now stands at 324 cases, an increase of 37 during the first week of elementary school classes.
A Cobb school district spokesman said that no classes or schools have been shut down as a result of the confirmed cases.
The school-by-school case totals also will be updated every Friday, the spokesman said.
The district also will be posting school-by-school figures at the end of the first week of each phase of classroom reopening. Middle school students who have chosen to return to school will do so on Oct. 19, and the high school return date is Nov. 5.
The district explained that in accordance with student and health privacy laws, “the Georgia Department of Public Health recommends refraining from publicly publishing numbers of cases or quarantined students or staff that are less than 10 unless the number is 0.”
Cobb and Douglas Public health will “communicate confirmed cases to affected students/staff/ parents,” according to CCSD protocols.
Those guidelines also state that those who test positive “will isolate until 10 consecutive days have passed from their positive COVID-19 test and they are asymptomatic.”
Students who are quarantined are those who test positive, are suspected of having the virus due to symptoms or who are “in close contact with someone who has a suspected case for COVID-19 due to the presence of symptoms.”
The “close contact” definition is someone who is within six feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, or who has had direct contact (hugging, etc.) with someone who’s infected, or who is sneezed or coughed upon by an infected person.
Quarantined students will continue remote learning until returning to school.
The district details those protocols in this FAQ and encourages parents to follow a daily well-being checklist before sending students to school. More health and safety information can be found here.
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