ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, N.C. — Right now, hundreds of students at Rockingham County Schools are in quarantine. Although the school does require masks indoors, there is one place students have a difficult time wearing them. That is when they are eating lunch in the cafeteria.
The district spoke about the current number and what safety measures they have in place.
Rockingham County Schools originally planned to start the school year with masks optional. Then before school started, the district changed its decision to require masks.
The district said its main goal is keeping students in the classroom.
"The majority of students that are having to quarantine, from what we are seeing, are students that end up eating at the lunch table with a student that tests positive because that's the scenario where they aren't wearing the masks," Rockingham County Schools Public Information Officer Adam Powell said.
Powell said so far, there are 474 students in quarantine.
"We just had over 100 cases district-wide," Powell said. "Ten staff, 92 students."
There are approximately 11,000 students across the district. Even with a couple of hundred kids in quarantine, Powell said he thinks the number would have been much higher if the district didn't change its masking policy before school started.
"I know that number of students that are quarantined, 474, would be substantially higher, probably three times higher if not for the mask mandate," Powell said.
Powell said the school is updating its COVID-19 dashboard every monday afternoon. The first day of school was last Monday, August 23rd.
"I think people are trying to make the best of a difficult situation right now because the one alternative everyone is dreading and trying to avoid is having to go back to all the way online," Powell said.
If a student is in quarantine, Powell said the district is giving them work to be completed online.