MONTICELLO – George L. Cooke Elementary School will remain on remote instruction only, for all of its students through Friday, October 9, as several staff members have been quarantined due to exposure to a COVID-19 positive staff member.
The Monticello Central School District and Sullivan County Public Health Services identified a total of 28 individuals who were exposed to COVID-19 on September 24 or 25 at Cooke Elementary School.
The State Contact Tracing program is reaching out to those individuals to provide them with further instructions. These individuals will be required to complete a 14-day self-quarantine, ending October 9. At that time, they will need to be symptom-free and present a note from Sullivan County Public Health Services that will be sent to individuals via the State Department of Health contact tracing system that releases them to return to the building.
With these quarantine orders impacting nearly 22 percent of the staff at the Cooke School, the school does not have enough staff possible to safely and meaningfully facilitate in-person learning under the instructional, health and safety guidelines published by the State Health and Education Departments. Therefore, all Cooke students will learn remotely through Friday, October 9.
The school intends to have students in cohorts A, B, and C return to the building on Tuesday, October 13. The school is closed on October 12 for a holiday.
Teachers will contact families to inform them of the next steps – students should receive a message from their teacher through See-Saw by the morning of October 1.
The district’s custodial staff have disinfected the building three times since the building closed and will continue to follow the established cleaning/sanitization schedule.
