With schools back in session for nearly two weeks, the Franklin County School System has avoided a large number of coronavirus diagnoses that has plagued some other systems in the state. Information on positive tests in the system will be reported each Tuesday evening.
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With schools back in session for nearly two weeks, the Franklin County School System has avoided a large number of coronavirus diagnoses that has plagued some other systems in the state. Information on positive tests in the system will be reported each Tuesday evening.
CARNESVILLE – With schools back in session for nearly two weeks, the Franklin County School System has avoided a large number of coronavirus diagnoses that has plagued some other systems in the state.
Franklin County Schools Superintendent Chris Forrer said in a Facebook post Thursday that the system has had three students and seven staff members test positive for the virus in all. Four of those staff members and two of those students were diagnosed in the last seven days.
The system has also had 23 staff members quarantined in the past week due to possible exposure and 26 quarantined in all.
Forrer said in the post that the system will release statistics on the total number of cases in the system each Tuesday night.
The decision was made after he was questioned about statistics reported in the Aug. 20 issue of the Franklin County Citizen Leader that did not include results of tests that were received on Aug. 19. Forrer gave the paper up-to-date information on Aug. 18, which was reported Aug. 20.
Thus far, positive tests since school started Aug. 7 have been reported at Royston Elementary, Lavonia Elementary and Franklin County Middle School.
Some school systems in the state – mostly in highly-populated counties – have reported outbreaks since starting back to school, with some closing temporarily for online instruction. Others delayed the start of school or began the school year with only on-line instruction.
Franklin County kept its Aug. 7 starting date and offered parents an option for online education, an option that about 500 students are using this semester.
Franklin County as a whole has had 471 total confirmed cases of the coronavirus since the pandemic began earlier this year, according to Georgia Department of Health (DPH) numbers. Six people have reportedly died from the disease.
In the past two weeks, 11 percent of those tested in the county have tested positive for a total of 93 total confirmed cases.
Forrer won’t say which department in the schools the positive cases are in due to medical privacy laws.
When the system learns of a positive COVID case, it follow protocols set forth by the DPH.
The school system received a new set of protocols last week, which involve keeping the infected person from coming to school until they are deemed no longer to be contagious.
Anyone who has been in direct contact with someone who has tested positive will be contacted by the health department.
Whenever a positive case happens or is suspected within one of the schools, each school has the capability to sanitize the area with a mister.
Then the entire school is sanitized with an electric sprayer purchased earlier.
The electric sprayer is used to sanitize the schools every week on a routine.
Students in Franklin County Schools are encouraged to wear masks – though they are not required – and to wash or sanitize their hands regularly.
Students’ temperatures are also taken before they enter school buildings each morning. Any student with more than a 100 degree temperature is isolated until they can be sent home.