Sports, clubs back in action at DHS after COVID-fueled hiatus

Sports and activities at Du Quoin High School are fully back in session, after school officials determined on Tuesday that the spike in COVID cases and quarantines did not make DHS a coronavirus hot spot.

And, by Thursday, there were more students coming off of quarantine than were getting sick or having to quarantine because of close contact with a case, officials said.

Last week Wednesday, Du Quoin District 300 called off all extracurricular activities at the high school, with 25 cases of COVID among the student population, and multiple more students on quarantine.

By last Thursday afternoon, 124 high schoolers - about 25% of all high school students - were on remote learning; as well as 57 K-4th graders and 59 middle schoolers.

Twenty-five active cases of COVID-19 "is nearly twice as many as we experienced during any one week last year," during the height of the pandemic, Superintendent Matt Hickam wrote to parents, adding that the overall impact on the student population was the greatest since the pandemic began.

However, Hickam said that by Tuesday of this week, administrators had determined that the majority of these positive cases were occurring out of school.

"As a result, we continue to move forward with our plan for in-person learning," he added.

Hickam said there were some instances of more than one positive case in the same classroom - in one case two students who are friends who sat next to each other in some classes but also socialized outside of school - where it proved difficult to know where the contact took place.

And this week, one student in an elementary class was almost certainly infected by another student in that class, he added. That whole class is currently on remote learning.

"We talked with the (Perry County) Health Department and looked at data," Hickam said. "Our discussion last week was whether we needed to consider a broader pause of in-person school, maybe close one building.

"But we looked at the cases and we could find enough boundaries," that indicated it was more likely students contacted the virus outside of school than inside, he said.

Hickam said administrators also were concerned that by closing the high school temporarily, the 75% of students who were not affected by COVID might wind up in more danger by being able to associate with friends, go to the State Fair, etc.

And this week, District 300 is getting healthier.

"We've not had any big flare-up this week," Hickam said. "We had a few more cases on Tuesday, from testing that was done at the end of last week."

District 300 started this week with 308 students on temporary remote learning. Now, they are below 300 and another 20-25 students are expected back in school on Friday. A bigger group is scheduled to come back next week, and Hickam anticipates they will be down to 15% on remote learning to start the week.

"Fifteen percent is not great but it's better than 25%," he said. To help the teachers communicate with all the remote learners, District 300 will continue the 2 p.m. early dismissal into next week.