Gardiner-area schools report 2 COVID-19 cases

GARDINER — Maine Administrative School District 11 reported that two teachers within the district have tested positive for COVID-19.

One of the teachers who tested positive works at Laura E. Richards School and the other works at Gardiner Regional Middle School, according to a letter written Saturday by Superintendent Pat Hopkins.

The schools will still operate as planned with in-person learning on a hybrid schedule Tuesday, Hopkins said. Schools across the state have Monday off to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Close contacts have been identified and contacted, Hopkins said, adding that the Gardiner Area High School’s boys basketball team has been impacted by the COVID-19 cases. As a result, the Mt. Ararat High School boys basketball team is in quarantine.

The teacher at the middle school level that tested positive for COVID-19 has a connection to the basketball team, according to Hopkins.

Eight adults are quarantining for 10 days, but Hopkins did not know the number of students in quarantine because she was not given any more details over the long weekend.

“There is a possibility that other staff or students came in contact with these individuals and therefore maybe exposed to the virus,” she wrote in the letter.

MSAD 11 middle and high schools have been operating in a hybrid learning model for the past week after having a fully remote week after the end of winter break. The elementary schools have maintained a hybrid schedule since the end of winter break Jan. 4.