RPS tweaks Covid protocols for elementary school classrooms

Rochester Public Schools has updated the criteria for masking in elementary schools amid a recent uptick of new Covid-19 cases.

As of Monday, classrooms where 15 percent of staff and students are absent with either symptoms of Covid or confirmed cases of the virus, masks will be required for everyone present in that particular classroom.

The same 15 percent threshold had been previously been used to identify classrooms that would potentially move to distance learning.

“RPS values the health and safety of our students and staff, and continues to adapt and implement mitigation strategies that allow students to safely remain in the classroom,” the district wrote in an email to parents.

The email goes on to state, “The decision for masking requirements at the classroom level was made to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the classroom and to avoid transitioning students to distance learning.”

Under the updated guidelines, the district will continue to monitor case rates and reevaluate the classroom’s need for masking after two weeks.

District-wide, there were 260 new cases of Covid reported last week, with 80 percent of them occurring in elementary schools. As of Wednesday, two schools, Longfellow Elementary and Washington Elementary, had met the 5 percent building threshold for a school-wide mask requirement.

Olmsted County as a whole has also seen a gradual rise in infections in recent weeks. The county reported 679 new cases in the latest seven-day period ending on Monday, a 33 percent week-to-week increase. The percent positivity rate was north of 20 percent, the highest it’s been in weeks.

Hospital visits have seen a marginal increase, with 22 county residents hospitalized for Covid in the latest seven-day period. The rate of Covid patients in the ICU remains low, however, at under 2 per bed.

Sean Baker is a Rochester journalist and the founder of Med City Beat.