Coronavirus: Clark, Champaign schools cases drop to 56

Global Impact STEM Academy will no longer require masks starting Monday due to decline in cases, quarantines.

Credit: Bill Lackey

Credit: Bill Lackey

School districts in Clark and Champaign counties have continue to report a decline in new COVID-19 cases.

Nine Clark County and four Champaign County school districts reported new cases of COVID-19, according to the Ohio Department of Health’s school district dashboard’s latest update.

In total, 56 student and staff cases were reported between the counties Thursday for the week of Oct. 18-24. This is a decline from the previous week’s total of 80 cases.

There were 32 cases reported in Clark County schools and 24 cases reported in Champaign County schools, according to ODH.

Because of the continued drop in COVID-19 cases and quarantines, almost all local school districts are no longer requiring masks.

Global Impact STEM Academy will no longer require masks starting today.

“We will be dropping the mandatory universal masking for the building except for Clark State courses taught in our building by their adjuncts. We will be strongly recommending masks,” Founding Director Josh Jennings said. “We have been monitoring our numbers over these past few months and we have had consistently low numbers of cases and quarantines these past few weeks.”

The academy changed to a masking requirement Sept. 7 due to a high number of positive cases and quarantines.

The local school districts that continue to require masks include Springfield and Urbana City Schools. Mechanicsburg Exempted Village Schools has short-term masking in place for certain classes.

The school districts that reported student and staff cases are:

Catholic Central: 1 staff

Clark-Shawnee: 4 students

Cliff Park High School: 2 students

Emmanuel Christian Academy: 1 student

Madison-Champaign ESC: 6 students, 5 staff

Mechanicsburg: 1 student

Northeastern: 2 students

Northwestern: 2 students

Southeastern: 2 students, 1 staff

Springfield: 12 students, 3 staff

Tecumseh: 2 students

Triad: 3 students

Urbana: 7 students, 2 staff

Cases reported on the school dashboard lag one week, meaning those reported Thursday were from Oct. 18-24

The dashboard tracks cases of COVID-19 in all public and private K-12 schools across the state. Data displayed on the board includes all student and staff cases broken into new and cumulative categories. The board is updated Thursdays.

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