Over 1,000 local K-12 students got COVID last week

Among Ohio’s 607 school districts, Xenia, Northmont and Beavercreek schools ranked seventh, ninth and 11th in the state for having the most new student COVID cases last week. Kettering, Centerville and Miamisburg schools also ranked in the top 20.

But it was not an isolated issue in a few schools. More than 30 local districts, private schools and charter schools reported at least 10 new COVID cases last week between students and staff. (see chart below).

Centerville, Franklin, Northmont and Dayton reported the most new COVID cases among school staff, with 8-9 each.

Public health officials said their advice to schools remains fairly simple.

“Everyone who is able to get vaccinated, should get vaccinated — students, faculty, staff, parents,” said Dan Suffoletto, spokesman for Public Health Dayton & Montgomery County. “And everyone should be wearing a mask indoors at all times whether you’re vaccinated or not. Those are the two basic strategies.”

PHDMC leaders Jeffrey Cooper and Dr. Michael Dohn expressed significant concern last month just as schools were opening, because the COVID-19 delta variant is both more contagious than the original coronavirus strain and affects school-age children more significantly.

Suffoletto said Friday that Public Health is not considering any recommendation for schools to move back online at this time. Both health and education officials have said the value of in-person classes is hard to overstate.

At this time last year, the entire state of Ohio was reporting about 1,000 new COVID cases per day, and many schools were still in fully remote learning. In the Dayton region, only 19 student COVID cases were reported to ODH from Sept. 7-13, 2020. This year, the state has recently seen 5,000 to 7,000 new cases per day, just after schools started in-person.

Since an August surge of COVID cases and quarantines disrupted the back-to-school process, many schools have recently changed their policies, adopting mask mandates, and in some cases, have closed for multiple days or a week in an attempt to stem the tide of COVID spread.

As of Monday, Troy will be the only one of the area’s 12 largest school districts with no mask mandate. Northmont and Springboro have partial mask mandates (grades PK-6), and the other nine will require masks for everyone (Dayton, Centerville, Kettering, Beavercreek, Huber Heights, Miamisburg, Lebanon, Fairborn and Xenia).