By Lindsay Doty
Brownsburg High School is one of the latest schools in Indiana to report a positive COVID-19 case.
Brownsburg High School families received information on Tuesday afternoon that a high school student had tested positive for the virus.
According to the letter, the Brownsburg Community School Corporation is following the guidance from the Hendricks County Health Department on what steps to take.
“Students and staff who have had close contact to this individual are being contacted separately about the next steps,” stated the letter.
Close contact is defined as a contact within six feet for 15 minutes or more.
According to school leaders, the spaces that the student had come into contact with have already been sanitized and disinfected.
Brownsburg Community School Corporation returned to school on July 30, and is its first full week of classes. Students were given the option to return to in-person instruction with mandatory masks or do virtual learning. The majority chose to return to classes.
Also in Hendricks County, the Plainfield Community School Corporation reported that an employee tested positive for the virus. The staff member self-reported the diagnosis and isolated before classes began for the district on Aug. 5, according to a letter shared with families and on the district website Aug. 4.
Plainfield Superintendent Scott Olinger said two other staff members are considered close contacts and were “immediately quarantined.”
The employees were not present for the first day of school.
“I am grateful for their honesty and transparency,” Olinger said in the letter. “Despite our best interests, we know we will see positive cases within our school family. When we learn of positive COVID-19 cases within a school, we will notify the staff and families associated with that school, and contact tracing will begin immediately. As a reminder, just because someone within the school family tests positive, we may never know where they came in contact with the virus.”
He calls this an important reminder that social distancing, wearing masks and proper sanitizing practices do work.
“We will have positive cases throughout the school year; one positive case is not going to shut down schools like it did in March,” he said
Last week, Avon schools learned an Avon High School staff member tested positive for the virus, but the individual had not been at school or have contact with employees or students, according to the district spokesperson.
