There evidently have been no signficant numbers of COVID-19 at local schools, although some of the schools are absent from recent reports.
Since mid-September, the Mississippi State Department of Health has been releasing the numbers of coronavirus cases and exposures among staff and students.
Pillow Academy had been reporting regularly — missing only a few reports and citing filing errors — but, since the start of April, Pillow has been absent from the reports.
Barrett Donahoe, head of school, said on Thursday, however, that Pillow has not had a positive case in more than a month.
He said, “We have not had a single case, neither staff nor students, since before spring break,” which fell the week of March 15-19. The school has been holding in-person classes since August.
Donahoe said numbers haven’t been continuously reported because the staff has been preoccupied with other school business.
A statement last year from the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools, to which Pillow belongs, argued that its schools should not have to report COVID-19 numbers to the state because the schools are not agents of the state but rather “small businesses.”
Carroll and Delta Streets academies, which are also a part of MAIS, have never reported their numbers.
In Leflore and Carroll counties, the numbers have been declining. The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District has reported no new positive cases for either students or staff since the start of the month.
In March, fewer than 500 students of the nearly 4,300 total population returned to a hybrid learning schedule, which combines both in-person and virtual learning.
Elsewhere, there have only been a few minor blips in the past couple of weeks. Leflore Legacy Academy, a public charter school, reported that between one and five students tested positive for COVID-19 and one student was quarantined due to exposure to the virus during the week of April 5-9, but by the following week the slate was completely clean.
Under the Health Department’s guidelines, when the number of cases is between one and five, exact numbers are suppressed to protect personal identity.
Students at the school started a hybrid learning schedule in January.
In the most recent data, the only schools in the Carroll County School District — J.Z. George High School and Marshall Elementary School — showed no new cases and no students quarantining.
- Contact Adam Bakst at 581-7233 or abakst@gwcommonwealth.com. On Twitter at @AdamBakst_GWCW.
