Written by Riley Gould
The latest rise in COVID- 19 cases has caused Winter Gardens Elementary School in Lakeside school to close down. The superintendent of the Lakeside Union School District, Andrew Johnson, alerted families and staff by email of the increase in positive cases.
“There have been 12 positive cases identified at Winter Gardens over the last two weeks, and in following the guidelines we have received from public health on school closures, we have decided to close the Winter Gardens campus for 15 days,” Johnson wrote.
This closure began this past Friday and, because of the upcoming break, will continue until January 4th. Students who have not contracted the virus will begin distance learning on Friday and will continue doing so for the remainder of the 2020 school year.
“I know it’s tough for families to have to pivot back to distance learning,” Johnson said. “I mean, today all the kids are in their distance-learning classes, so we know how to do that. That’s how we opened the school year in the beginning. But it’s tough to keep pivoting back and forth. It’s a difficult situation for everybody.”
Johnson also said that everyone who was on campus should think of themselves as exposed and should find out if they came into close contact with anyone who did test positive.
Nicole Camacho, the mother of a student at Winter Gardens expresses how although she is not surprised to be in this situation, she isn’t worried because she thinks the school does a great job of keeping things under control.
“I’m not surprised we’re in the situation we’re in,” Camacho said. “I’m not too concerned about it because I feel the school has done such a good job of immediately getting things under control the minute they heard anything. I was disappointed because, obviously, it provides a little bit of a hiccup in our day-to-day life, but I was super happy they were handling it quickly.”
Photo via Lakeside Union School District Instagram
