READFIELD — As Maranacook Community Middle School prepares to resume in person classes after reporting a positive COVID-19 case, school officials said that there has been no evidence of a coronavirus transmission among other students at the school.
The middle school, which is part of Regional School Unit 38, reported a probable positive case on Sept. 28, and Maranacook Community High School reported its own positive coronavirus case on Oct. 2.
But the principal of Maranacook Middle School, Kristen Levesque, reported Oct. 9 through a letter to the community that there were no other COVID-19 cases thought to result from the student’s case at the middle school.
“The case of COVID was traced back to another person (who is not part of the MCMS physical population),” said Levesque, noting that the case at the middle school originally started elsewhere.
As soon as the student went to the nurse with symptoms, they were sent home as soon as possible, minimizing contact with any other students, the letter said.
Wearing a mask, social distancing, small student cohorts and staggered class time dismissals were key in helping prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Levesque said, adding that because there were no other cases within the middle school, the preventive measures “worked and did exactly what we wanted — to keep our MCMS students and staff healthy.”
RSU 38 was offering in-person classes before news of the reported case.
The case triggered a response from Superintendent Jay Charette to hold class remotely for two weeks. They will resume in-person classes on Tuesday, following the Indigenous Peoples Day holiday.
“The two-week experience of going remote has allowed our staff and students to experience our remote learning schedule,” Levesque said in the same letter. “As many can attest, our remote learning program is leaps and bounds better than the program we operated in the spring.”
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