Ketchikan High School in 2013. (KRBD photo)
Ketchikan High School will be closed all day Thursday after its first student tested positive for COVID-19. Superintendent Beth Lougee updated Ketchikan’s school board on the situation Wednesday, hours after the test results came back.
“We did receive word that we have our first student positive COVID case at Ketchikan High School. We immediately went into action with our protocols, notifying parents, working with public health and EOC. We have closed down Ketchikan High School, the whole building, district preschools will not be in session,” Lougee said.
The district had previously set aside Friday for parent-teacher conferences, which will proceed as planned.
The student has not been identified for privacy reasons. Lougee says contact tracing is underway, and staff and students will be notified when they’ll be allowed to return to classrooms
The high school, known locally as Kayhi, Lougee said, will be disinfected by a team from Ketchikan Pest Control and then deep-cleaned by custodial staff.
“Our other schools will remain open. And then — So, everybody else is expected to be at school tomorrow, except for the people who are housed in the high school,” Lougee said.
It’s the Ketchikan school district’s first confirmed case among the student body.
In August, a Ketchikan Charter School staff member tested positive just before students were to return to class. The charter school reopened after a 24-hour closure to allow deep cleaning.
Students attend classes in person five days a week in Ketchikan. Masks are required while at school, and staff members check students’ temperatures as they enter the building. That follows a 5-2 vote of the school board which opted for full-time instruction rather than distance learning.
