Ranger – Ranger Elementary/Middle School students and staff were able to return to the campus Monday after two weeks of quarantine for possible exposure to COVID-19 ended for several staff members and students.
Dr. Jeana Conley, superintendent of schools, announced that Ranger would reopen during her report at the Cherokee County Board of Education meeting Thursday night.
“Thank goodness a majority of them did not come down with the virus,” Conley said.
As of Thursday, only five students and four staff remained quarantined at Ranger. Heather Watson, lead nurse for the district, said Friday morning that all staff would be able to return Monday, and everyone who tested positive was cleared of virus.
On Aug. 28, 11 staff members and 10 students were quarantined at Ranger due to two staff members testing positive. Since then, only three more students and two more staff members tested positive at the school.
Watson said those new positive cases may not have been related to the others. Only one staff member at the school had been “pretty sick” with the virus.
In total, Cherokee County Schools has had 25 students – five of which are remote – and 11 staff test positive for the virus since the school year began.
Conley said the goal is to keep the schools open, and the cohort system in place is allowing them to do that. With the cohort system, the virus is less likely to spread through the schools, as students are staying in one classroom with one teacher on the two days they are in the building.
The system is tedious for students and difficult for teachers, Conley said. The next phase in the plan would be to have teachers going room to room, but through conversations with the Cherokee County Health Department, they are not ready for that phase yet.
Conley added that 75 percent of the schools in the state are fully remote because of the challenges of in-person learning guidelines, and applauded the county’s principals for the work they’ve done. She also said she “continues to be impressed” by the teachers and their efforts to reach their students.