Three Greenwood area private schools are in violation of a Mississippi health officer’s directive for failing to make their weekly report on the number of COVID-19 infections and quarantines of staff and students.
School COVID-19 report week ending Oct. 2
At least two of the schools, however, said they assumed this reporting was being taken care of by the private school association to which they belong.
The three schools — Pillow, Carroll and Delta Streets academies — were missing from the weekly recap of school-by-school infections released Tuesday by the Mississippi State Department of Health. Both Carroll and Delta Streets were also absent the week before, when the Department of Health first began listing the reporting schools rather than providing only countywide totals.
The omissions could potentially be a violation of state law, a misdemeanor that carries a fine up of to $500 and six months in jail. “It is mandatory for all schools to self-report to us weekly. This includes both public and private schools,” said Liz Sharlot, communications director for the Department of Health.
Both Carroll and Delta Streets said that they have been reporting their data weekly to the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools, the governing body to which they belong. They said they understood that the Pearl-based organization would transmit the data to the Department of Health, but, according to Sharlot, the Department of Health has not received any reporting from MAIS since Sept. 4. Messages left with MAIS Wednesday were not returned.
T. Mac Howard, head of school at Delta Streets, said his school has not had any COVID-19 cases. At Carroll Academy, Headmaster Penny Mitchell said the situation was similar. She said her school has had one positive case but declined to say whether it was a student or employee. “We’ve been very blessed,” Mitchell said about the low COVID-19 rate the school has seen.
In Pillow’s case, Head of School Barrett Donahoe said he was familiar with the requirement to report directly to the Department of Health but doing so last Friday fell through the cracks.
“Having to report to both the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools and Mississippi Department of Health can sometimes be a logistical nightmare,” Donahoe said. “But we are lucky that we only have a few cases.”
Donahoe said that there have been two staff members to test positive. Both have self-quarantined at home. One was expected to return Thursday and the other next week, he said.
Donahoe said classrooms or other areas where the infected employees worked were disinfected and parents were notified of the positive tests.
Pillow has reported the most positive cases of COVID-19 among students in the two counties. The nearly 800-student school had six as of Sept. 25, but there have been no additional student cases since then, according to Donahoe.
Among the schools that did report their numbers this past week, North New Summit School was showing the most significant effects of the virus. It had between one and five students test positive for COVID-19. (Department of Health protocol, due to private concerns, is to only report ranges when the number of cases is five or less.) Eleven other students at North New Summit were quarantined due to exposure to the virus.
Although children generally show few if any symptoms of infection, the fear is that they will transmit the virus to more vulnerable adults at school or home.
• Contact Adam Bakst at 581-7233 or abakst@gwcommonwealth.com. Twitter: @AdamBakst_GWCW
