Hampton switching to remote learning for 10 days to avoid covid spread

The Hampton Township School District will shift to remote learning for 10 days to address concerns raised by health officials that people traveling during the Thanksgiving break could cause covid cases to spike.

Students will return to online instruction from Dec. 1 to 10, school officials announced in a letter sent to families and posted on the district website.

“In spite of the safe conditions in our schools, we have learned that the Thanksgiving break is a substantial concern for the health department from a community spread standpoint,” Superintendent Michael Loughead wrote in a letter to families.

Remote learning will allow the district to stick to its new travel policy that requires students and staff who travel outside the district required to quarantine when they return.

The superintendent also noted that health officials also are worried coronavirus cases could increase when college students head home for Thanksgiving.

“It would be prudent to employ an alteration to in-person instruction that would support the need for students and family members in our school community to remain safely at home following the Thanksgiving break,” Loughead said.

The Allegheny County Health Department recommends a quarantine period of 14 days, but notes that most infections occur within the first few days after exposure.

Loughead said discussions with health officials reinforced that steps districts have taken to limit the spread of the virus in school has been effective.

“We were told (by health officials) that schools remain extremely safe and that there is no indication that virus spread in our region is connected to our schools in any notable manner,” the superintendent said.

“It was confirmed that the explosion of cases that we are seeing has been due to spread entirely unrelated to our careful practices of in-person instruction,” he said.

On Nov. 13, Allegheny County was moved to the “substantial risk category,” which means there have been more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents during a seven-day period.

As of Saturday, the county had 23,121 cases of covid-19 — a 3,622 case increase from last week, according to the health department.

That’s more cases than the entire month of October (3,448), which was in turn, an increase of 72.3% from September (2,001).