Moniteau R-1 administrators clarify return timeline for quarantined students

This article is being offered free to all readers because it includes information important to the health and safety of our community.

With more than 100 individuals in the Moniteau County R-1 School District asked to quarantine due to contact with positive COVID-19 cases this week, district administrators hope all will return to in-person classes by early October.

The California school district has six active COVID-19 cases among its population as of Thursday, including one new positive case reported Thursday morning. Two of the cases are among staff members, and the rest are students.

As a result of these positive cases, 165 close contacts were quarantined as of Wednesday, including 10 staff members, and are set to return by Oct. 5 barring any additional new cases.

The number of actively quarantined individuals fluctuates from day to day, Superintendent Dwight Sanders said Thursday. Because of this, the Moniteau County Health Center has assembled an internal dashboard for the district, similar to its dashboard for overall county cases, to help administrators stay informed about the real-time number of direct contacts public health officials have determined.

While students are out, California Middle School Principal Matt Abernathy said, they will take part in temporary virtual learning through Google Classroom, where they can upload assignments and parents can receive notifications about their progress.

"We anticipate they are going to be back as soon as their quarantine period is over," Abernathy said. "So we only plan to have them virtually learning for about a two-week period. During that time, teachers are providing them with usually video or written instruction that goes out through their Google Classroom site - so kids are accessing Google Classroom, they're monitoring their emails, and they're communicating back and forth with their teachers in those two platforms."