ATTLEBORO, MASS. (WHDH) - Coronavirus concerns from Lowell to Attleboro are prompting some schools to change course after teachers and students prepared for in-person classes.
Parents of school children in Attleboro learned Tuesday that a student who attended the public high school the day before had tested positive for COVID-19.
Superintendent David Sawyer says they were not notified of the test result until Tuesday.
“This unacceptable outcome was caused by delays in the reporting timeline, not a breakdown in our safety protocols,” he wrote in a letter to families. “Our nurses diligently have identified all of the close contacts and notified these families of the need for these students to quarantine for fourteen days. If you were not contacted, your student was not impacted by this event.”
About 30 students have been told to quarantine.
Classes are continuing at Attleboro Public Schools.
Lowell Public School officials announced Tuesday that most of their students will not be able to begin in-person learning as scheduled due to a lack of air purifiers.
Students in grades 1-12 who were scheduled for in-person learning starting on Thursday — and are not assigned to substantially separate special education programs — will begin the school year in a remote learning setting after the remainder of the school’s purifiers were held up in shipping due to delays in a national supply chain, according to a release issued by Superintendent Joel D. Boyd.
Currently, there are 128 air purifiers available for use across the entire district.
In Reading, Austin Preparatory’s Upper School will now go fully remote after close to 40 students attended a party over the weekend with no safety precautions in place, according to Head of School James Hickey.
Students had originally returned to school last week under a hybrid model.
Hickey says there are no confirmed cases of the virus but due to the risk, the campus will be closed for at least two weeks.
“On a personal note, it was heartwarming to see students back on campus after a six-month hiatus and now it’s beyond disappointing that Austin Prep’s return to campus has been derailed by students who made selfish choices while they were off-campus,” he wrote in a letter to families and students on Monday.
Austin Prep reported this past weekend an unrelated case of COVID-19 within the school community.
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