Mahomet-Seymour High School to close building, students move online

Because of an increase in COVID-19 cases and exposures at Mahomet-Seymour High School, the high school will close down to in-person instruction until Jan. 26.

All extra-curricular sports are also paused until Monday, Jan. 25.

“This is out of an abundance of caution, and will provide an opportunity for cleaning as well as four consecutive days with students away from the building,” Superintendent Lindsey Hall said in an email. “Through contact tracing, we believe that the cases and exposures this week at our high school can be largely attributed to gatherings outside of school and are not due to exposure at school.

The move comes after an additional three students at Mahomet-Seymour High School have tested positive for COVID-19 and sixteen students were exposed. Since Monday, there have been three additional cases at the high school.

According to current statistics on the Mahomet-Seymour COVID-19 dashboard, there have been 10 positive cases since Jan. 18 and 89 students and staff are currently in quarantine.

Mahomet-Seymour returned to in-person learning on Jan. 5, moving away from a hybrid model where 80-percent of students chose to attend school in two groups twice a week to a four-day a week model with 76.5-percent of the student population in the school.

With social distancing measures unobtainable in some classrooms, Mahomet-Seymour exposure and quarantine numbers have increased in the month of January.

“In transitioning to our second-semester model, we knew that with more students in school we would likely need to put more students into quarantine if there were positive cases in school,” Hall wrote to parents. “This was stated publicly in our September 21, 2020 Board of Education meeting by District Nurse Nita Bachman and myself. It is a known outcome of our second-semester plan. Very simply, with more students in school, more students will be exposed when there are positive cases resulting in larger numbers of students in quarantine. The vast, vast majority of our positive COVID 19 cases are coming from outside of school from various gatherings and events, and then resulting in the quarantining of students when they are exposed in school.

“While the vaccine is now available for certain parts of our population, and various restrictions are being lifted in our state and region, COVID 19 is very much still being spread, most especially in situations where masks are not being worn and/or gatherings outside of school. While I realize this message isn’t popular, it is our reality right now—if your family or your children engage in activities that are high or higher risk, including not wearing a mask, then the possible outcome is contracting COVID 19, very possibly resulting in a quarantine. Your respect and understanding that our job on the school end is to contact you and inform you of the quarantine is appreciated and needed. We know it isn’t the information you want to hear, we know a quarantine is inconvenient, and we know a quarantine means staying at home. Bluntly, if you take and accept the risks regarding the transmission of COVID 19, then a quarantine could be the outcome. We also ask that our families consider that in order for in-person learning to continue seamlessly without interruptions, we ask that families consider your activities and your child’s activities outside of school. With extracurricular activities ready to begin, please know that interruptions in these activities could occur as well if we continue to see increases in cases such as we have this week. Keeping kids in school is going to involve some sacrifices from everyone. Again–I realize it isn’t a popular message, but it’s our reality right now.”

According to the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department, there are 66 active COVID-19 cases in Mahomet.