Springfield school moves to virtual format after positive COVID-19 case

One school within the Springfield City School District has moved to a virtual format after a positive case of the coronavirus was identified, according to the district’s spokesperson.

The positive case was found at Hayward Middle School and the person who tested positive is a student, Cherie Moore, spokesperson for SCSD said.

Monday was the first day that Hayward Middle School made the transition to virtual learning.

“Hayward Middle School has moved to a virtual format until this Friday, Sept. 25, when the district will re-evaluate students returning to in-person instruction,” Moore said.

According to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard for the week of Sept. 14 through 18, one student tested positive for the virus and seven students and one teacher were quarantined.

The dashboard is updated each week with new case information, per an Ohio Department of Health order from earlier this month requiring all schools to report cases to their county health department within 24 hours of learning about them.

Gov. Mike DeWine unveiled the Ohio Department of Health COVID-19 school district dashboard during his press conference on Thursday.

The state dashboard will track 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 two categories: new and cumulative. The board is updated each Thursday.

Moore said the district is currently working with the Clark County Combined Health District to investigate the case at Haywood.

“The Clark County Combined Health District, along with our partner, Springfield City Schools, are currently investigating a situation and doing contact tracing relating to the matter," Kyle Trout, Communications Coordinator for the CCCHD, said.

He added that “since it is so early in the investigation process, we are unable to say it is an outbreak.”

Trout said more information will be available after the investigation has ended.

Last week, Northeastern and Graham Local School District were the only two districts in Clark and Champaign County who recorded a positive case, according to the state’s school COVID-19 dashboard.

The positive case at Northeastern was found within Rolling Hills Elementary School on Sept. 2 and the person who tested positive was a staff member. The positive case at Graham was confirmed on Sept. 11, but the district did not specify which school or if it was student or staff related.

Urbana City Schools also confirmed a positive case on Sept. 18, but the district did not say if it was student or staff related.

Clark County had 1,759 cases, 38 deaths and two probable deaths of the coronavirus as of Tuesday afternoon, according to ODH. Champaign had 294 cases and three deaths.