Virus cases close Foot of Ten school

Building caseload reaches 4; other district schools remain open

HOLLIDAYSBURG -- The Hollidaysburg Area School District has announced that the Foot of Ten Elementary School will be closed today because of COVID-19.

There will be no in-person learning today, and students should use the virtual learning platform, according to Superintendent Robert J. Gildea.

The closure applies to Foot of Ten Elementary School only.

All club and extracurricular activities have been suspended for now. The district will work with the Department of Health to determine the duration of the school's closure. The normal in-person schedule will resume Monday, unless notified by the district, according to Gildea.

As today is a virtual day, Foot of Ten will follow the same procedures that were used while the school was fully remote. Teachers will post assignments to the Google Classroom or provide paper and pencil work for students to access and will provide a live Google Meet with students.

Gildea said the district was notified Thursday morning that a fourth individual has tested positive or was identified as presumed positive for COVID-19, and that person was physically present in the Foot of Ten Elementary School setting earlier in the week while infectious. The families of students who have been in close contact with these individuals have been contacted and directed to quarantine.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health has determined that public PreK-12 school entities in counties with substantial transmission rates must follow directives requiring schools that choose to pursue in-person instruction to close temporarily once the count of active COVID-19 cases reach a certain number of cases in a 14-day period. The case threshold for Foot of Ten Elementary is four cases, Gildea said.

Once the positive case threshold is attained, the district is required to close only that school building and return to a virtual setting until disinfecting and contact tracing is completed.

No students are permitted in the school during the closure.