{"id":44755,"date":"2021-09-08T19:21:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T01:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-district-reports-11-covid-cases-but-no-outbreak-among-students\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:21:12","slug":"durango-school-district-reports-11-covid-cases-but-no-outbreak-among-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-district-reports-11-covid-cases-but-no-outbreak-among-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango School District reports 11 COVID cases, but no outbreak among students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango School District 9-R has agreed to a pay the district\u2019s next superintendent, Karen Cheser, $200,000 annually. Cheser currently earns $170,000 annually as superintendent of the Fort Thomas Independent School District in Kentucky.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango School District 9-R has seen 11 COVID-19 cases among students since classes began Aug. 24.<\/p>\n

The cases do not represent an outbreak: The students caught the coronavirus in the community \u2013 not in school, said Heidi McMillan, medical director for the school district.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The transmission rate) is three times higher than we want it to be, but we\u2019re going to reflect where the community is,\u201d McMillan said. \u201cThere\u2019s no in-school transmission yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the school board reviewed district, local, state and national COVID-19 transmission numbers.<\/p>\n

The Durango School District reported a one-week incidence rate of 95 cases per 100,000 people as of Tuesday, McMillan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the district, we have a whole host of unvaccinated individuals in one place,\u201d McMillan said. \u201cThe fact that we can be lower than the county is evidence that the mitigation strategies are working.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s goal is fewer than 35 cases per 100,000 people in one week.<\/p>\n

At that point, the district can change its mitigation strategies. For example, only symptomatic people would be tested for COVID-19, instead of opt-in weekly surveillance testing by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.<\/p>\n

The district would encourage masking. During higher transmission periods, like now, the district relies on public health advisories, which currently recommend requiring masks.<\/p>\n

Vaccinations are key to keeping case rates low, McMillan said.<\/p>\n

Unvaccinated people are more likely than vaccinated people to contract COVID-19 as the doubly contagious delta variant spreads La Plata County.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t overemphasize vaccination. If we could really get our vaccination (rates) up, it would really help with this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The district has emphasized in-person learning for students.<\/p>\n

Board members considered examples from other states, where school districts have relied on various public health measures to control the spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

A layered mitigation strategy \u2013 using multiple practices such as masking, testing and contact tracing \u2013 is shown to yield the greatest success in achieving in-person learning, McMillan said.<\/p>\n

The district will need to continue monitoring transmission data to inform its public health practices, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, we\u2019re (the county) still in a high transmission rate, but we\u2019re doing better than many parts of the county or the country,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re not out of the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Durango school board expects to hear regular COVID-19 updates during its board meetings to monitor the spread of the virus and adjust mitigation measures when appropriate.<\/p>\n

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

reflect the spread of COVID-19 in La Plata County<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,1086,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44755","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=44755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86216,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44755\/revisions\/86216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44755"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}