Plum’s Oblock Junior High has nearly 100 students quarantined due to exposure to covid-19
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Plum School District has nearly 100 Oblock Junior High School students quarantined due to covid exposure less than two weeks into the new school year.
The district’s covid-19 count was included on the school district website, which was updated Tuesday.
First day of classes was Aug. 19.
The district reports only three active cases at Oblock, yet 94 students are in quarantine.
So far this year, there have been one staff member and 102 students at Oblock who have been quarantined because of exposure.
Districtwide, there are 14 active student cases and one active staff case, according to the report.
Numbers are based on self-reporting by the staff and district families.
Plum had an optional mask policy as long as positive case rates stayed below 8% for grades 7-12 and less than 5% for K-6.
That will change next week as Gov. Tom Wolf has mandated masks at all public and private K-12 schools starting on Tuesday.
“Because the use of masks will now be mandatory, there should be a significant drop in the number of students that will need to be quarantined,” Plum Superintendent Brendan Hyland wrote in a letter sent Wednesday to district parents. “Additionally, we are finding that many students who were required to quarantine, would not have had to if they had been vaccinated. In fact, of the students who have been quarantined and were eligible for the vaccine, approximately 65% would have remained in school had they been vaccinated. Please strongly consider having your student vaccinated.”