Some Woodland Heights, Elm St. students switched to remote due to COVID

By MICHAEL MORTENSEN, THE LACONIA DAILY SUN
Dec 9, 2020
Dec 9, 2020 Updated Dec 17, 2020
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LACONIA — Some students at two of the city’s elementary schools have switched to remote learning after positive COVID-19 test results among both staff and students.

The switch to remote learning affects kindergarten students at Woodland Heights School, and second graders at Elm Street School, Superintendent Steve Tucker said Wednesday.

School officials learned at 10 a.m. Wednesday that a Woodland Heights staff member had tested positive for coronavirus. Contact tracing showed that some kindergarten students had been in close contact with the infected staff member. School officials also learned that a second Woodland Heights staff member had been in close contact with another person outside the school district who tested positive for the virus, Tucker said.

All Woodland Heights kindergarten pupils and staff were dismissed early, the superintendent said.

The kindergarten students will be learning remotely from home through Dec. 22. On Dec. 23, they will return to class under the school’s hybrid schedule.

Second-grade students at Elm Street School will receive remote instruction through next Tuesday, after two students tested positive. The following day they will return to school under the hybrid schedule, alternating between days of in-class instruction, and home lessons with online interaction with teachers.

This marks the first time that any of the city’s elementary schools have had to switch to full remote learning for any of their students this academic year.

Laconia High School and Laconia Middle School switched to remote learning for a time last month after staff members at each school tested positive for COVID-19 and the number of staff members who needed to quarantine because of close contact prompted the switch because there were too few staff members available to support in-school instruction. Both schools have since returned to a hybrid schedule.

Tucker said the latest development affects only Woodland Heights kindergarten classes, and second-grade classes at Elm Street. All other classes at those two schools, as well as all classes at Pleasant Street School, and the middle and high schools will continue with their prearranged hybrid schedules.

(1) comment

Chico Dec 10, 2020 10:40am

I have to say that I am really bothered that this information about the Laconia grade schools and the Coronvirus outbreak is sort of hidden here and not front and center of the newspaper.

I am writing this comment rather than a letter to the editor, because my wife is long teacher in Laconia Schools, and I didn’t want to draw any undue attention to her.

I feel like I’m wasting my time here, because it seems like the Laconia Daily Sun doesn’t seem to want to print comments anymore, but I going say it anyways.

There are no words to describe the total irresponsibility of the School Board in not closing down all in class sessions and switching to total remote teaching not for one or two days or weeks at a time, but from now until after all of the Holidays, maybe until February or March 1st ; to try to mitigate the risk of what is a raging COVID-19 in a third wave and now affecting all of the grades. You have either staff, children or extended families of staff testing positive for the Coronavirus and it’s not going to end anytime soon. It’s foolish to continue this hodgepodge way of trying to teach or maintain open classrooms, it’s hap hazard and not functional. It makes sense to try go remote for a length of time to give a consistent and routine effort in teaching, and children will fall into the routine of remote, other than going back and forth at any moment….it makes it confusing and not any regular routine.

Today we have an average of 2 people dying and 250 new cases of Coronavirus every minute in this country today and the virus is rising everywhere including here in New Hampshire, this isn’t a flu or common cold; it a deadly virus. We had over 3000 deaths in this country yesterday and almost 290,000 overall deaths, this is an infection that is overwhelming our health care systems and hospitals.

The only responsible thing to do is for the entire Laconia School district to go to totally remote now, actually it should have been after the Thanksgiving, but start now and until late February or March 1st; allowing for an uninterrupted continuity of teaching.

It’s pretty clear that the risk of infections spiking over the holidays due to even small family gatherings is dangerous, family members and relatives of multi-generational families will travel or receive travelers to their homes risking likely exposure to the Conronvirus.

This is not a time to gamble or use wishful thinking with what is clearly looking like community spread of the Covronavirus. This is the time to get serious and try to control this virus spreading by being responsible and listening to the Scientist and Doctor; our children, parents, extended family members and communities lives depend on it.