By Eliot Fowler | Nov 26, 2020
BELFAST — Fourth in a series. Reprinted from The COVID Classroom, a newspaper started by students in Nancy Nickerson's fourth-grade class at Capt. Albert W. Stevens School about what it is like to attend school during the pandemic.
Capt. Albert Stevens School has now experienced its first COVID case. The name, classroom, and position of the person who has gotten COVID must remain confidential for safety and privacy reasons, and not even we writers know that info, but here’s the scoop on what we do know:
• The class (or staff member) must quarantine.
School procedure states that any class or staff member with a positive COVID case must quarantine for 14 days before returning to school, and so that is what the class/person is currently doing. If it is a class, the class will do remote learning on either iPads or ChromeBooks (depending on the grade) until the 14 days is up on Oct. 28.
• This is the second positive case in RSU 71.
This case is the second confirmed positive case in RSU 71. Unfortunately, this case in the school could be linked to the recent COVID outbreak in Waldo County.
• The position of this person remains unknown.
It is unknown whether the person with COVID is a student, teacher or other staff member. Since most of the info about this case must remain confidential, the position of this person and the rest of the info about the case (including, if it is a student, name, age, classroom and grade) will remain unknown.
• Students were pulled from school early Monday, Oct. 19.
The day the COVID case was identified, students were released early so cleaning crews could come in immediately and deep clean the school, so kids and adults who were not quarantining could come back to school Thursday, Oct. 22.
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Now, here’s the author’s personal take on the story:
When the school announced that everyone was going home early at 12:30, my class was at the Tanglewood 4-H camp about 20 minutes from the school on our weekly Monday visit. A Tanglewood worker came up to the field we were in, in a golf cart, during lunch, and he told the teacher, Mrs. Nickerson, that dismissal was three hours earlier than usual. So we quickly packed up our lunches and walked down to the bus station.
I remember that I overheard one of my classmates saying that we were doing two days of remote learning. At first, I didn’t believe them and thought they were joking or spreading a rumor. But then I asked Mrs. Nickerson, and she told us in fact yes, we were doing remote learning for a couple days. So we hopped onto the bus and drove back to school.
Once back at school, we got off the bus and we walked to our classroom. Parents were already lined up at the exit, ready to pick up their kids (now exhausted by all of the change).
First, though, we had to go back inside to wrangle all our things out of the building into the cars and buses waiting for us. So we went back inside and we collected our things including laptops, water bottles, hats, jackets, etc. When we were finally ready, we stacked up our chairs and evacuated the building.
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Author’s notes:
The info in this article was up to date as of Oct. 19. Info may be outdated once it reaches you. To learn more about this new COVID case on the web, you can visit: rsu71.org/superintendent.
Sources:
* https://bangordailynews.com/2020/10/18/news/midcoast/2-more-cases-of-covid
-19-detected-at-belfast-area-schools/
* https://bangordailynews.com/2020/10/16/news/midcoast/virus-confirmed-at-be
lfast-elementary-as-waldo-county-reports-11-new-daily-cases/
