On Aug. 17, Camp Verde Unified School District opened all three of its schools for in-person learning, after having been online-only since the beginning of COVID-19-related shutdowns in March.
It was the first of the public school districts in the Verde Valley to reopen in-person, with Mingus Union High School opening a month later this past Thursday.
CVUSD implemented mask requirements, hand-washing and social distancing measures to try to reduce spread in the schools, but reopening, especially as the first district in the area, was a step into the unknown that carried with it the risk of potentially increasing spread of coronavirus in the area.
But after a month of in-person schooling, there is nothing to suggest that a spread of the virus occurred. According to CVUSD Administrator-In-Charge Danny Howe, there has only been one case of a student who came to school in the district testing positive for
the novel coronavirus, and it happened in the first week.
“We’re just following the protocols. We’ve got good protocols,” Howe said. “The littles down at the elementary school — they’ve got their hand washing routines. In the middle school [and high school] we’re keeping them in cohorts …. We have more kids eat outside so we can social distance more.”
According to Howe, while the district had just over half of students coming to the schools for in-person learning the first week while the others stayed online, those coming in-person has risen to closer to three quarters in recent weeks.
“Obviously, the social distancing becomes more of a factor because you’ve got more kids in the classroom,” Howe said. “They’re masked in the classrooms, and they take mask breaks throughout the day.”
On Aug. 17, the day that CVUSD reopened, there had been 139 confirmed coronavirus cases in Camp Verde since the beginning of the pandemic. As of Sept. 17, there were 155, an increase of only 16 in the previous month. In the month from July 17 through Aug. 17, the increase in Camp Verde was 51.
“We didn’t even see a plateau in our numbers, let alone a spike,” Stephen Everett, section manager for communicable diseases at Yavapai County Community Health Services, said. “We’ve been going down consistently since August. There wasn’t any change even over Labor Day.”
Other communities in the Verde Valley have seen similar drops in new cases, even as schools reopen. In the month from Aug. 17 through Sept. 17, the total number of cases in the Verde Valley increased by just 62 to 723, compared to 245 in the previous month.
Cottonwood increased by just 18 to 277, compared to 80 in the month before. Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek together rose 12 from Aug. 17 through Sept. 17, with 54 in the previous month.
Clarkdale had just 1 new case, bringing its total to 65, with 29 in the previous period. Cornville rose by 4 to 32, compared to 7 in the previous month. Rimrock increased by 9 to 51, having increased by 24 in the month from July 17 through Aug. 17.
Leslie Horton, executive director for YCCHS, praised the reopening plans that schools followed and said that the positive results were reason to be optimistic about continuing cautious reopenings in other sectors in the area. However, she warned that the danger remains real, and the care is necessary to avoid a new outbreak.
“Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it can’t happen in schools,” Horton said. “I do think we need to be cautious. We could see an upturn at any point in time. That’s what we see in other states — people start interacting more like they did before COVID. If the majority of folks are abiding by the strategy, we will see better results. It’s a very contagious virus still. It hasn’t changed in that way.”
Everett said that the previous spikes in June through early August involved some heavy concentration in nursing homes that have now been stopped, which he believed led to the drop in the new case rate. But he warned that since children are mostly asymptomatic, an outbreak in a school remains a serious threat, since it would be hard to tell it was happening until after it had already spread widely.
“The main thing I’m worried about is spread in schools because it can go unprotected longer than in a more vulnerable population,” Everett said. “We won’t go back to where we were last year where no one is wearing masks or social distancing, but as long as people are careful [we can do more].”
