From the Superintendent of Nordonia Hills City Schools,
Recently the Nordonia Hills City Schools Board of Education rescinded its universal mask mandate for students in grades K-12 and all visitors to our schools, upon the implementation of the new quarantine guidelines released by the Ohio Department of Health.
Since that time, and more specifically since Halloween, we have seen an uptick in the number of positive COVID cases in some of our schools. Most notable is Lee Eaton, which has seen 17 students and staff members test positive for COVID since November 1. Contact tracing has verified that many positive cases at Lee Eaton are the result of in-school spread.
The middle school, Rushwood, and Ledgeview have also seen an increase in cases. To date, contact tracing has shown that these are the result of community spread.
Our ultimate goal is to keep kids safe in school. To that end, I am reinstating the mask mandate for Lee Eaton effective immediately. In addition, Lee Eaton students will remain in their homerooms, with teachers traveling between classes, as we did last year. Please understand that we are perilously close to having to return to remote learning at Lee Eaton, and I hope that adding these additional layers of protection can prevent that. This reinstatement will be effective at least through Thanksgiving break, at which time I will reassess.
Students in other buildings are HIGHLY ENCOURAGED to wear masks to school. If the number of positive cases continues to grow, or if we see in-school spread in the other buildings, I will consider reinstating a mask mandate in those buildings as well.
This is a good time to remind you that Akron Children’s Hospital will be at Lee Eaton this Friday, November 12, from 3-7 p.m. to vaccinate any students aged 5+. These voluntary vaccines are free of charge. Please return a consent form to your child’s school clinic by this Thursday if you wish your child to be vaccinated. You can see more information about the vaccination clinic here: https://www.nordoniaschools.org/protected/ArticleView.aspx?iid=5YGBUI&dasi=23Y
As always, thank you for your continued support of the Nordonia Schools, and Go Knights!
Sincerely,
Joe Clark, Ph.D.
Superintendent
