{"id":42665,"date":"2022-01-19T01:23:28","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T08:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-school-district-cancels-classes-events-after-20-teachers-are-exposed-to-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:08:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:08:38","slug":"bayfield-school-district-cancels-classes-events-after-20-teachers-are-exposed-to-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-school-district-cancels-classes-events-after-20-teachers-are-exposed-to-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayfield School District cancels classes, events after 20 teachers are exposed to COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Bayfield School District had its first day of remote learning Wednesday after the district closed because of new positive COVID-19 cases.<\/span>Shannon Mullane\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Bayfield School District announced Tuesday that classes, academic events and other planned activities have been postponed for the rest of the week because of a surge in COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n

Twenty teachers were in quarantine after being exposed to the virus or testing positive for it, and 23% of the student body was absent by the end of the day Tuesday, said Superintendent Kevin Aten.<\/p>\n

The school district employs just under 100 teachers and about 170 staff members, Aten said.<\/p>\n

The announcement was posted to the school district\u2019s website, emailed to parents and displayed on the district Facebook page.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know this is really the safest thing for our school and our community,\u201d Aten said. \u201cOut of an abundance of precaution, we\u2019re going to shut things down for a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aten said a meeting with custodial and maintenance staff members was held Tuesday and a deep cleaning and sanitizing of school buildings and facilities, including transportation, will be carried out this week.<\/p>\n

Basketball games were canceled, and two community meetings intended to explore the possibility of switching to a four-day school week were postponed.<\/p>\n

Aten said the school district views a four-day school week as a tool for teacher recruitment and retention.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne hundred sixteen of 178 school districts are already on a four-day week, and I don\u2019t think people realize that,\u201d Aten said. \u201cIt is a clear majority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aten said the decision to cancel classes and postpone the community meetings was a difficult decision but one the district doesn\u2019t take lightly, and the district is doing everything it can to keep students, staff members and the community safe.<\/p>\n

In a community announcement<\/a> released in August ahead of the 2021-22 school year, Bayfield School District said it welcomes and recommends mask-wearing for all individuals who enter its facilities, but it is not requiring masking for staff members or students, regardless of vaccination status.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

23% of student body was absent Tuesday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2766,685,28,668],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bayfield-school-district","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-public-health"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85414,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42665\/revisions\/85414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42665"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}