Public Information and Announcements

Good evening, am writing to you this evening to share that the district was informed of 8 additional cases of Covid-19 today. These cases impacted students and/or staff at Canaan Elementary School (1 case), Bloomfield Elementary School (2 cases), North Elementary School (1 case), Mill Stream Elementary School (1 case), Skowhegan Area High School (1 case), and Skowhegan Area Middle School (2 cases).

I’m writing to make you aware that as of this evening, the district has reached 315 cases of Covid-19. This is a staggering mark considering the district had 60 cases all of last year. Further frustrating is the fact that the district has had 126 cases since Thanksgiving, representing more than double the cases we had last year. 

Yesterday Superintendents from around the state were notified by the Maine Information and Analysis Center that there had been a national investigation regarding a Tic Tok messaging campaign that stated that there will be a shooting in a US school this Friday, December 17th and that the threat had been determined to be NON-Credible. Either a person or group is supposedly promoting violence at school through TicTok. It is not uncommon for districts to receive warnings like this, and we always consult with local Law Enforcement. Again, the threats have been deemed to be non-credible at the national, state and local level.

Cases of Covid-19 continue to be on the rise in our area, with MSAD 54 identifying 20 cases today and yesterday. Unfortunately, the impact to our families and our staff, have been missed class time for kids who are close contacts and not vaccinated or in pooled testing. Although staff have put in admirable effort to support students, there is no true replacement for lost instructional time. 

Covid-19 Cases from Monday and Tuesday:

As indicated there were 20 positive cases of Covid-19 in the district over the last two days. The cases were as follows: NEL – 1, SCTC – 1, BES – 2, CES – 2, MCSS – 3, SAMS – 3, SAHS, 3, MSES – 5. As a result of these 20 new cases of Covid-19, 90 students have been required to quarantine from school.

I am writing to you this evening to share that the district was informed of 12 additional cases of Covid-19 today. These cases impacted students and/or staff at Canaan Elementary School (3 cases), Bloomfield Elementary School (2 cases), Margaret Chase Smith School (1 case), North Elementary School (2 cases), Skowhegan Area High School (3 cases), and Skowhegan Area Middle School (1 case).

This week has proven to be one of the biggest in the number of new cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic with 48 new cases and 212 individuals quarantined. This school year's total number of cases to date is 272, which is nearly 4.5 times the total for the entire 2020-2021 school year. These cases have resulted in having to quarantine 1,194 individuals so far this year. Although we continue to see little spread of the virus in our schools, the spread in our community is having a big impact on our students' ability to come to school and learn. This also has an impact on family members and their ability to work. We continue to strongly encourage families to take advantage of vaccination or pooled testing as a way to keep their child in school more safely.

The last two days in MSAD 54 have marked the single highest two-day case totals since the start of the pandemic, with 18 positive cases in the district. As cases continue to climb, so too does the impact to our students and their families. Although we continue to see very little spread of the virus in our schools, we strongly encourage families to consider pooled testing or vaccination as a means to keep their children in school more safely. For additional information, the USDOE is co-sponsoring a webinar this Thursday evening which will provide information on vaccinations for students age 5-11: https://bit.ly/3Igd52t.

As I mentioned earlier in the week we will be sending Covid-19 updates twice weekly moving forward, generally on Tuesday’s and Fridays. Today’s email includes cases from Tuesday through to today.

We have continued to see increased cases since the holiday break. Over the past four days the district saw a total of twenty additional cases of Covid-19; one case was from Bloomfield Elementary School, two cases from North Elementary School, two cases from Skowhegan Area Middle School, five cases from Canaan Elementary School, and ten cases from Skowhegan Area High School. As a result of these 20 new cases of Covid-19, 47 students have been required to quarantine from school.

If we were to include Monday’s total case count, there were 28 positive cases of Covid-19 this week. As you can see, we have seen a significant uptick in the number of positive cases and that has corresponded in additional students being required to quarantine from school. As we move into this holiday season we ask that everyone continue to be vigilant to social distance and mask when possible, and to never come to school when sick.

Calendar Reminder: Please be reminded that next Wednesday, 10/8, is a district half-day with early dismissal for students at 11:45.