Rising in-school cases send Luverne students learning online

Luverne Middle and High School students returned to distance learning Monday as positive coronavirus case numbers within the school district doubled in a week’s timeframe.
Elementary students met in-person through Wednesday in preparation for hybrid learning to begin on Monday, Nov. 16.
The change in learning models, effective through Nov. 27, is meant to slow the spread of COVID-19.
When the district opened for the 2020-21 school year on Sept. 8, students in Luverne either attended classes every day (elementary) or on an every-other-day (middle-high school) basis.
Last week, however, Superintendent Craig Oftedahl announced in a Nov 5 letter to families that the learning models would change.
“This past month we have steadily watched these numbers increase, but have maintained that our numbers in the school have been low, thus keeping the same learning model,” he wrote.
“However, this past week, we have seen our numbers in school increase, and consequently we felt we reached a level where a learning model change is needed.”
Luverne School Board members met in emergency session Friday morning, Nov. 6, to formally adopt the learning model change.
Oftedahl further explained the case numbers and discussions among the district’s incident command team, a group of medical and school personnel as well as parents, which led to the learning model change.
“We are seeing a sharp increase and it’s causing some concern not only for the nurse’s office but also for all our staff and administration,” he said. “[We’re] trying to figure out how we’re going to have substitutes in the building, and where we are going to find them.”
Between Sept. 8 and Oct. 28, the district had 11 positive cases among staff or students. All have since recovered.
However, from Oct. 29 through Nov. 5 there were 11 more cases, five students and six staff, diagnosed as positive.
As a result of the new positive cases, 74 students and staff were out of school and potentially under quarantine. That could last 14 days depending on individual test results.
“And that (positive) number will likely go up,” Oftedahl said.
Board members unanimously supported the learning model change through Nov. 27. (School board member Shelley Sandbulte was not in attendance, either in-person or via Zoom.)
Newly elected board members from the Nov. 3 election, Jeff Stratton and David Wrigg, attended the meeting in person.
With the official adoption of different learning models, students in kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary will transition from an in-person, every-day attendance to a hybrid model, where half of the 550 students would attend in-person classes on alternating days from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Elementary students met in-person through Wednesday. Today and Friday, Nov. 13, there is no school at the elementary as teachers prepare for the new learning model. 
For the 650 students in grades six through twelve, they began the school year under hybrid conditions and on Monday, Nov. 9, they will begin distance learning from home every day.
Discovery Preschool will continue in person for now.
 
Going forward
With COVID-19 positive numbers growing in Rock County, Superintendent Oftedahl was uncertain how future case numbers would impact the district’s learning model after Nov. 27.
He was less certain as to where those numbers should be to resume in-person learning.
When the district adopted learning models to begin classes in September, the 14-day case rate in Rock County was 29.75 per 10,000 residents.
The most recent two-week window ending Oct. 24 had the county with a case rate of 96.67, down from a high of 121.11 from the previous two-week period.
At a case rate of 121.11 from Oct. 4-17, Rock County had the highest rate in the state. Rock County is now eighth-highest in the state. 
According to the Minnesota Department of Education, any case numbers over 50 should prompt school districts to change to distance learning for all students.
Luverne was able to continue for three months without changing learning models, arguing that district numbers themselves were low until last week.
“We used to be able to contact trace,” Oftedahl said after Friday’s special meeting. “Now we can’t. We can’t connect the dots.”
Previously staff or students who tested positive were able to trace each gathering they attended, to pinpoint the source of the virus infection.
Now people are attending multiple, small gatherings, sometimes out of state where people also attended from other states.
The local incident command team will continue to meet on a weekly basis to monitor the positive numbers in the county as well as within the school district.
There is one threshold that Oftedahl would like to achieve in the next three weeks.
“We would like to at least to be able to staff (our classrooms),” he said.
“If we can get our staff back in and our kids’ (numbers) simmered down — I don’t know what that number is.”
As of Sunday, Rock County had 438 positive cases since March and nine deaths from the coronavirus.