Christian County Public Schools’ Superintendent Chris Bentzel believes they are doing everything they can to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and he still feels good about students being back in the classroom.
At a news conference with media Tuesday afternoon, Bentzel says they are still moving forward with in-person instruction for elementary students and the hybrid schedule for middle and high school students until fall break which begins October 5th. After Fall break if the numbers still look good and there are no issues, he adds students will return and continue with those same instruction models.
He explains the district updated the COVID Data Dashboard to make it more user friendly and removed the quarantines outside of school because it’s not a mandatory report anymore. He adds schools are going well and they have had one case in the last three days. As of Tuesday, Bentzel says there are 28 total active cases in the district.
He adds that Millbrooke Elementary School has the largest in-person population and currently has no coronavirus cases.
Bentzel says he has talked to all the cases and they are asymptomatic, doing well, and ready to come back to school.
Even though Christian County is back in the red zone or critical stage of COVID cases, Bentzel says it’s the school district’s job as students return to in-person instruction to mitigate the spread of the virus in the buildings. Bentzel adds he thinks they have developed a really good comprehensive plan as students go back to in-person to keep parents, families, and students safe and accountable to mitigate the spread of the virus.
He adds it would be easier to keep students at home with nontraditional instruction but he feels having them back in school is part of the solution.
Bentzel says right now the district is doing the best they can and the data does not show that school is the part of the problem of the spread or incident rate pushing the county into the red zone.
Parents and community members can view the district’s COVID Data Dashboard by going to the school district’s website.
