700+ Crown Point students put into quarantine; school district now requiring masks
CROWN POINT, Indiana - More than 700 students and staff in Northwest Indiana were put into quarantine last week because 47 students and 3 staff members tested positive for COVID-19.
Data provided by Crown Point Community School Corporation shows that during the week of August 23, students and staff at Crown Point High School were severely impacted:
- Crown Point High School: 321 quarantined
- Col. John Wheeler Middle School: 26 quarantined
- Taft Middle School: 138 quarantined
- Eisenhower Elementary: 62 quarantined
- Jerry Ross Elementary: 52 quarantined
- Lake Street Elementary: 23 quarantined
- Macarthur Elementary: 15 quarantined
- Solon Robinson Elementary: 14 quarantined
- Timothy Ball Elementary: 42 quarantined
- Winfield Elementary: 7 quarantined
- Learning Center: 7 quarantined
The district has 9,821 students and staff total.
Students in Crown Point were initially allowed to decide whether they wanted to wear a mask or not. But starting Wednesday, the school district has mandated masks be worn by everyone.
The change, the district says in a letter home to parents, is not due to the increase in cases but to keep more kids in school.
Without masks, students and staff have to keep 6-feet distance. With masks, that reduces to just three feet.
One elementary school student's parent says the quarantine call, she feels, is inevitable.
"I've been through it a couple times. So as soon as I see the phone ring, I go ‘oh no, here we go.’ It's either one's in trouble, one's sick, or we're being quarantined. So right away they say ‘everyone’s good, everyone's ok. But your child has been traced and needs to be quarantined for 14 days,'" the parent said.
Vaccinated students and staff who are determined to be a "close contact" with a COVID case do not have to quarantine if they are vaccinated and showing no symptoms, in accordance with Indiana State Department of Health guidelines.