SAD 46 officials are optimistic about the district’s case numbers improving

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DEXTER – Administrators at SAD 46 are confident that the COVID-19 case and quarantine numbers in the district schools are falling and the worst may be over. “Ridge View is something like the point where I hope we’re peaked and on the downside,” District Nurse Crystal Greaves said during a school committee meeting held on November via Zoom.

DEXTER – Administrators at SAD 46 are confident that the COVID-19 case and quarantine numbers in the district schools are falling and the worst may be over.

“Ridge View is something like the point where I hope we’re peaked and on the downside,” District Nurse Crystal Greaves said during a school committee meeting held on November 3rd via Zoom.

She said the Ridge View Community School had 51 cases so far before Grade 8 this year, more than double from 2020-21, but now students attend classes in person five days a week. Greaves said 14 people at the school are in quarantine.

A total of 352 students and employees of the school take part in pool tests. Greaves said this helps students stay in school as they don’t need to be quarantined.

In pool tests, with the permission of their parents, students are placed in small capsules to be dabbed off. Samples are sent to the laboratory for testing. If there is a positive case in the pool, students will be retested to see who is positive. Those who tested positive would need to be quarantined, and this would help identify close contacts who may need to be quarantined as well.

“Ridge View has up to 30 separate pools and all of our pools are negative,” she said. Greaves said the last seven days of testing all failed positive results, allowing the school to get the 14 days required to exit the outbreak status.

Nurse Angie Buker said Dexter Regional High School has 22 positive cases and the Tri-County Technical Center has seven, with 14 students being quarantined between the two schools. Buker said 120 students and staff are taking pool tests and the latest results are negative.

Masks are required in SAD 46 schools because Penobscot County is in the red zone, the most severe of the four designations under the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s community’s color code system.

Last month, school boards approved a plan that would make wearing masks daily optional should the numbers drop to the lowest two designations. This decision would be made by the building management and not by the school management in their meetings.

“To reiterate, things are going in a really great direction,” said Steve Bell, director of Dexter Regional High School, at the beginning of his report. “The high school hasn’t had a pool test positive in three weeks.”

He then said that regional and state level meetings were held to determine what the winter sports season will be like. “Nobody really makes a decision,” said the director.

“The bottom line is there will be winter sports, there will be some kind of mask recommendation,” said Bell. He said that decision will likely be made between school districts, likely after discussions with nearby administrators from other school units to reach consensus.

Something else to determine is the number of admitted spectators, such as only home fans, a limited number in connection with the away team and / or another combination.

Bell said previous discussions about wrestling had indicated that participants may need vaccinations because they would not be able to come to terms with a mask. There was no high school wrestling season in Maine in 2020-21, and basketball players wore masks on the court.

“We’re feeling very encouraged late last week and early this week,” said Jessica Dyer, director of Ridge View, citing the number of pool test takers and positive cases Greaves had previously cited in the session.

She said the start of winter sports has been postponed by a week from November 1st to November 8th until the case numbers will be even lower.

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