The Building Blocks preschool class at Fox Elementary School in Arnold was canceled this week because of an outbreak of COVID-19 cases.
Fox Elementary’s kindergarten through fifth-grade students and staff members continue to have in-person classes this week.
On Sunday evening (Nov. 7), Building Blocks supervisor Tiffany Allen sent a letter to parents of the 17-student class to announce the class would not be held Monday through Friday (Nov. 8-12). The class, which has one teacher and one teacher’s aide, will resume Nov. 15.
In the letter, Allen said, “This decision was made in an abundance of caution to ensure the health of our students and staff due to positive and pending COVID testing results. During this time, we will ensure the classroom is cleaned and we are ready to resume on 11/15/21.”
Building Blocks is the Fox School District’s tuition-based preschool program, which is open to children between the ages of 3 and 5. The preschool class at Fox Elementary is one of the district’s eight Building Blocks classes.
The district would not release the number of positive cases reported from the Fox Elementary preschool classroom to protect the identities of the students and staff members, said JP Prezzavento, Fox’s communications and instructional technology coordinator.
Prezzavento said this is the first classroom that has been closed for an extended period because of COVID-19 this school year.
Fox began the school year Aug. 25 with a mask-wearing requirement because to try to curb the spread of the virus.
On Oct. 29, the district changed its policy to recommend but not require masks to be worn after the county’s COVID-19 test positive rate had fallen to the yellow level on the Jefferson County Health Department’s COVID-19 four-color warning system.
Masks were recommended but not required for four school days – Oct. 29 and Sept. 3-5 – before the district returned to a mask-required policy today.
Students, staff members and visitors are required to wear masks when Jefferson County is in the red or orange levels, the two highest levels, on the Health Department’s color scale.
Jefferson County is in the red, the highest level of transmission, based on its case count per 100,000 people over a seven-day period, and it is in the orange, the second highest transmission level, based on its positivity rate, the Health Department reported last week.
On Nov. 3, the department said there were 154.7 new positive cases per 100,000 people for the week of Oct. 24-30, and the positivity rate was 9.1 percent during that time.
