10% of students in large school district near Charlotte quarantined due to COVID
Ten percent of the students in one of North Carolina’s largest school systems were quarantined over the past week due to close contact with someone at school who tested positive for COVID-19, school officials said Friday night.
And nearly 1,000 of the students in the Iredell-Statesville Schools were isolated with COVID-19 symptoms, or 5% of the student population, officials said.
With more than 20,000 students, Iredell-Statesville Schools north of Charlotte ranks among the 20 largest school systems in the state.
According to the district’s weekly COVID-19 update released Friday night, 2,065 students were quarantined between Friday, Sept. 3, and Thursday, Sept. 9, because of close contact with someone at school who tested positive for the virus.
Another 516 students, or 1% of the student population, were quarantined because of close contact with somebody in the community who tested positive, the data shows.
Thirty-two staff members were quarantined because of close contact with someone at school who tested positive for COVID-19, according to the figures. Another 25 were quarantined because of close contact with somebody in the community who tested positive. Both numbers represent 1% of district staff.
According to Friday’s data, 216 students and 35 staff tested positive for the disease Sept. 3-9.
District officials announced no new measures in response to the numbers.
The previous week, COVID-19 numbers more than quadrupled in the Iredell-Statesville Schools and more than doubled in the Union County Public Schools, according to new data from the school districts.
Six Iredell-Statesville Schools were on temporary remote learning that week due to COVID-19 spread, the Observer reported at the time.
Concern over the rising COVID numbers prompted the Iredell-Statesville Board of Education recently to mandate that everyone wear a face covering in schools. The vote was 5-2. Masks are still optional in Union County Public Schools.