{"id":44948,"date":"2021-08-27T00:46:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T06:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/manaugh-elementary-in-cortez-halts-in-person-learning-after-surge-of-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:22:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:22:36","slug":"manaugh-elementary-in-cortez-halts-in-person-learning-after-surge-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/manaugh-elementary-in-cortez-halts-in-person-learning-after-surge-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Manaugh Elementary in Cortez halts in-person learning after surge of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Students
Students at Manaugh Elementary School broke ground on an apple orchard in 2017.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Manaugh Elementary shifted to online learning Thursday because of a surge in COVID-19 cases among staff and students, according to a letter from the school.<\/p>\n

The letter was sent to Manaugh families Wednesday, and the Montezuma-Cortez School District announced the closure Thursday on its Facebook page.<\/p>\n

An excerpt reads: \u201cAn unexpected occurrence has been the new variant of the Coronavirus that is racing through our school.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school plans to reopen Sept. 7, according to the letter, which added that the school will be disinfected while it is closed.<\/p>\n

Students received Chromebooks \u2014 except for kindergartners, who were given iPads \u2014 to continue learning from home via Google Classroom, according to the letter.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez Superintendent Risha VanderWey and Manaugh Elementary Principal Whitney Rapp did not respond to requests for more information about virus cases and the elementary school\u2019s closure.<\/p>\n

Marc Meyer, director of Pharmacy Services and Infection Control at Southwest Health System, provided The Journal<\/em> with the health system\u2019s most recent county virus breakdown sourced from data Monday and Tuesday. On those days combined, 320 tests were administered, and 34 new positive cases of COVID-19 were found, he said.<\/p>\n

Sixteen cases, distributed equally, were reported among people ages 1 to 15.<\/p>\n

Eighteen cases were reported among people ages 21 to 73. Of the 18 adult cases, 13 were among people under 35 years old, he said.<\/p>\n

Meyer added that no COVID-19 patients currently are hospitalized in Montezuma County.<\/p>\n

Last week, three to five people with COVID-19 were hospitalized at any one time in Southwest Memorial Hospital. Patients with more serious cases were flown to hospitals on the Front Range, he said.<\/p>\n

More children were being tested than adults, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids will do fine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It is only occasionally they will become very ill, or develop Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C)<\/a> after contracting COVID-19, he said.<\/p>\n

Montezuma County announced Wednesday that its Public Health Department would stop reporting COVID-19 cases on its county website and Facebook page. The announcement directed residents to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment<\/a> website.<\/p>\n

The Journal<\/em> has contacted the Montezuma County Public Health Department to discuss COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Assistant Superintendent Lis Richard said she thought 12 students had tested positive for the virus in the district.<\/p>\n

At one school, seven staff had been quarantined, Richard added.<\/p>\n

Manaugh Elementary has not been listed on the CDPHE outbreak map, which is updated every Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Masks are optional for students in the school district. The Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 Board of Education voted 5-2 Tuesday to not mandate masks for district students. School staff are required to wear masks.<\/p>\n

Board members Sherri Wright, Sheri Noyes, Tammy Hooten, Stacey Hall and Cody Wells voted against the motion to require masks for students.<\/p>\n

Schuenemeyer and Chris Flaherty voted to mandate masks.<\/p>\n

The Journal <\/em> will post updates as more information becomes available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reports coronavirus \u2018is racing through our school\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,155,28,167,2165,216,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-manaugh-elementary","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44948","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=44948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86285,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44948\/revisions\/86285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44948"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}