Local Schools COVID-19 update

CARTHAGE, Mo. — While some Missouri schools are seeing growing numbers of COVID cases, the totals are generally low in southwest Missouri — in some cases single digits.

These Carl Junction Junior High students are learning about elements like carbon and hydrogen. And there are more of them in classrooms to take part in in-person lessons.

That includes fewer students learning remotely.

“We have 55 students that are enrolled for virtual instruction this school year which is dearer than what we had last year. But our goal is to have face to face instruction in the classroom and to provide that and I’m thankful that we are doing that and that our students are back in school and in our classrooms learning,” said Dr. David Pyle, CJ R-1 Assistant Superintendent.

CJ Assistant Superintendent Dr. David Pyle says they’re also seeing much lower numbers in COVID quarantines and isolations.

“We currently have no staff members that are isolated or quarantine in fact we have not had that so far this school year. We’ve got three students that are isolated and 34 that are quarantined. And compare that back to last year, we had 10 staff members isolated, 9 that were quarantined – we had five times as many students isolated,” said Dr. Pyle.

A comparison of numbers this week from five local districts show Carthage, Webb City and Neosho each have around a dozen students isolated with COVID.

The Joplin School District has the most student COVID cases at just over two dozen. All five districts have few, if any, teacher and staff quarantines and isolations.

Pyle points out they now know more about COVID than this time last year… and the number of vaccinated patients is growing.

“Vaccination is a layer that that’s in place now that we didn’t have last year. We surveyed our staff prior to the start of the school year and 75% of our staff members are vaccinated. So, I believe that that is definitely helping,” said Dr. Pyle.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *