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From The News-Courier staff—
The Benjamin Independent School District joined the other two Knox County districts in canceling football games last Friday after learning about positive cases of COVID-19, but each planned to be open Monday for classes.
“We did cancel the game as a precaution,” Superintendent Gordon Thomas said.
In a letter to parents and guardians, Thomas said, “In keeping with Benjamin ISD’s practices to respond to COVID-19, we are notifying all student families that a student who was lab-confirmed to have COVID-19 was present on the campus of Benjamin School on Friday, Sept. 25, 2020. Due to privacy requirements, we will not be releasing the name of the individual.
“We are continuing to clean and disinfect the campus thoroughly each day. We ask that you continue to watch for symptoms of COVID-19. At this point, operations at Benjamin School will continue as normal, and we will keep you appraised of further updates.”
Thomas said any of the following symptoms indicate a possible COVID-19 infection:
- Temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher when taken by mouth;
- Sore throat;
- New uncontrolled cough that causes difficulty breathing;
- Diarrhea, vomiting, or abdominal pain;
- New onset of severe headache, especially with a fever.
“If you or any member of the Benjamin School community does begin experiencing any of these symptoms in a way that is not typical, we encourage you to contact your physician.” added Thomas. “Anyone in the Benjamin School community who is lab-confirmed to have COVID-19 should notify the school at 940-459-2231.”
Both the Knox City/O’Brien Independent School District and the Munday Consolidated Independent School District had announced last Monday and Tuesday their schools would be closed for two weeks because of similar reports of staff and students testing positive.
Munday is not scheduled to re-open until Tuesday, Oct. 6 while Knox City will do it the next day. Both will be providing remote learning opportunities for students.
All athletic events will not take place during the two weeks. This means Knox City’s Oct. 2 game with Aspermont has been cancelled while Munday’s opening District 6-2ADII game at Olney will be moved to the week of Nov. 2-6. Efforts will be made to make up the District 5-2A volleyball games.
Both Supt. Colin Howeth and Supt. Troy Parton reported that contact tracing from the positive cases found almost all students would be considered “close contact” and felt that the best decisions were to quarantine all students, even those at the elementary schools because the older students had siblings there.
