Mumford High on Detroit's northwest side reverted to remote learning this week "due to its Covid outbreak status," the district says. The school on Wyoming Street, which reported 22 Covid cases last week, is due to reopen next Monday.
It's one of four "Detroit Public Schools Community District schools [that] have temporarily shut down [since late October] due to student and staff Covid cases — the first full-school closures of the school year," Chalkbeat Detroit reports.
The northwest Detroit school reported 22 Covid cases last week. (Photo: Erin Einhorn/Chalkbeat)
The latest state roundup of school outbreaks lists 15 infected teens at Central High and 16 student cases at Bates Academy, an elementary school on Wyoming Avenue near 8 Mile. Both were closed last week, as was Durfee Elementary-Middle School on Tuxedo Street, according to Chalkbeat. (Central and Durfee are in the Dexter-Linwood area.)
The closures, coupled with quarantines of individual students and classrooms, are the latest example of how the pandemic is disrupting a year envisioned as a chance for students to recover and reconnect.
Closing schools "is not a practice that we want to use, but a practice that we'll use if we feel that there's a lot of spread of Covid in an individual school or a grade level," Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a recent parent listening session. ...
Outbreak data reported by state health officials shows that Covid-related interruptions to in-person learning are increasing statewide. The 5,200 cases reported this week as part of outbreaks in schools were more than double the same figure one month ago.
The true number of cases in schools is likely higher. Outbreaks are only declared when districts report three or more linked COVID cases on school grounds.
Related:
Over 100 Metro Detroit Students Are Among New Covid 'Clusters' at 25 Schools, Nov. 1
