MCSD staff could be vaccinated in early 2021

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Staff report

     Some positive and exciting news was released late last week regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and Monticello Community School District staff.

     Superintendent Brian Jaeger shared in his weekly update that the vaccine would be available for school staff in late-January/early-February. The vaccines require two doses, so staff would receive that, too, about a month following the first dose.

     There is no information available concerning the vaccine for students over or under the age of 16.

     “If our staff is vaccinated,” said Jaeger, “we will be able to consider returning to 100 percent in-person learning to finish the school year.

     “It is probably still too far out to know if we can do that yet,” continued Jaeger, “but we need to be thinking ahead.”

     Some other positive news out of the MCSD… COVID-19 case numbers and absences are continuing to go down.

     “We have dropped from a 21.4 percent 14-day positivity rate last week to a 12.8 percent positivity rate this week in Monticello,” shared Jaeger. “That is a very good sign for our school district.”

     In Monticello, there has only been one positive case in the last three days; nine cases in the last week; 23 positive cases in the last 14 days.

     “Those numbers have also continued to improve since the middle of November,” added Jaeger.

     The MCSD currently has eight students and one staff member in isolation (showing a variety of symptoms), and 10 students and zero staff under quarantine (exposed to someone with COVID-19, not necessarily at school). Those numbers amount to 2 percent of the student body and one percent of the staff count who are out for COVID-related reasons.

     However, there are still many students taking part in either full online learning or hybrid learning: 207 in PreK-12 grade. This is 21 percent of the student population.

     “This number has dropped slightly over the last week,” Jaeger said.

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