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COVID-19 spread closes Eagle Point High School By Joe Zavala Updated: May 12, 2021 03:04 PM A A Four students test positive; contact tracing completed The Eagle Point School School District has given high school students the day off and was still contract tracing Wednesday afternoon after four students had recently been diagnosed with COVID-19. The announcement was made by the district through its website and Facebook account Tuesday, explaining that staff would report to work but “students should not come to school.” Superintendent Andy Kovach said today that contact tracers believe the outbreak occurred via community spread, and Eagle Point assistant principal Aaron Luksich estimated that about 100 students – but no teachers - may have come into contact with the infected students. “That’s not a hard number but that’s what we’re looking at right now,” Kovach said. The contract tracing for three of the students was done Tuesday afternoon, but the district was notified of a fourth case at about 5 p.m. After that, Kovach said the district had to take action. “So we’re taking a step back,” Kovach said. “First of all, just trying to track those students and get ahold of them and get ahold of their families is a big process. We have tracking sheets and all of our attendance records and mapping for where kids were sitting in schools, and trying to sort out who was affected was quickly becoming impossible before the start of school today.” According to Luksich, the contract tracing was all but finished this afternoon but the district – including about 20 district staffers who were busy tracking down students today – is still waiting on some call-backs after leaving messages. The decision on what to do going forward, including a possible return to remote learning, will likely be made in a matter of hours. Preparing for another round of Comprehensive Distance Learning was one of the reasons teachers were working today, Kovach said. “if we have to, one of the possibilities in the cards for us at this point is that we would have to change our mode of instruction,” he said. “And so if we are going to do that, that involves a lot of work. So we thought, OK, better safe than sorry, we need to get after that right now just in case.” They’ll find out soon. “It will be done today,” Kovach said, “and we’ll be conferring, consulting with the Jackson County Health Department this afternoon and then we’ll make a decision on what we’re going to do as a school district late this afternoon or early this evening.” Joe Zavala can be reached at 541-821-0829 or [email protected].