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School Board meetings are typically held at Bliss Educational Services Center. (Metro Wire photo)

‘Unprecedented’ student absenteeism force public schools down for at least a week

By Brandi Makuski

Stevens Point public schools have been forced to close in-person learning next week due to a high number of students and staff who are either sick or in quarantine.

In a message sent to parents on Jan. 6, Superintendent Craig Gerlach said closing down the schools is the result of “a dramatic increase in positive COVID cases” across the district.

All students in grades K-12 will be shifted to e-learning beginning Monday, Jan. 10 and through Friday, Jan. 14. SPASH will be closed on Friday, Jan. 7.

According to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard, 1.79 percent of the district’s 7,493 students had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Jan. 6.

Gerlach said COVID is just one reason for an unusually high number of absent students throughout the district. Compounding the problem, he said, is the regular cold and flu season.

Gerlach told the Metro Wire Thursday night that he, his cabinet, and school principals have for weeks been discussing the possibility of notifying district families that they should prepare for the possibility of returning to e-learning in short order.

“We had that communication ready to go this morning, but things changed just so fast overnight,” he said. “Things got really heavy this morning. The entire situation changed in really short order. We’ve been talking about this every day, and our numbers took a turn this number just like that.”

Gerlach said several schools in the district have been experiencing staffing shortages, but he said, “an unprecedented number of students at SPASH are out sick.”

The district has a “good handle” on dealing with COVID, he said, but it’s also flu season, which makes the problem worse. The district has previously closed area schools due to a flu or whooping cough outbreak, but Gerlach said the district has never seen anything like this before.

“We have approximately 25 percent of our kids out at SPASH—that’s incredible. When you have this many kids out, that means there are a whole lot of other kids running around with an illness. Whether it’s COVID or the flu or a cough is beside the point; they’re spreading germs, and that’s what tipped the scale for us,” he said. “This week has been really tough.”

The two junior high schools have about 10 percent of their respective students out, and three elementary schools are close to that number, Gerlach added.

“How many people can you put into an auditorium for study hall? It’s not even instruction at that point, it’s just supervision,” he said. “If we don’t do this, we’re going to be talking about it tomorrow, then closing one building after another building. We don’t have a healthy environment right now.”

Gerlach said due to a 25 percent student absentee rate at SPASH, the high school will be closed beginning on Friday, Jan. 7.

The district will re-evaluate e-learning by Jan. 13, Gerlach said.

“I hope to God we can return to in-person learning next week,” he said. “There’s not one of us that wants to go to e-learning.”