FARMINGTON — The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has said the Mt. Blue campus is in “outbreak status,” following nine positive cases during the week ending on Friday, Sept. 17, and 10 cumulative cases.
The campus is home to Mt. Blue High School and Foster Career and Technical Education Center.
In a letter to the Regional School Unit 9 community sent Sunday, Sept. 19, Superintendent Chris Elkington said the district has consulted with the Maine CDC and “there will be no changes to the instructional model at Mt. Blue Campus” despite the status.
He said administrators and nursing staff have investigated the outbreak and are “confident that there has been no in-school transmission and that this outbreak is related to outside exposures.”
The Maine CDC designates an “outbreak status” at a school when there are “three or more … confirmed cases among different households during a 14-day period.”
Elkington acknowledged that “the term ‘outbreak status’ can be worrisome,” but its purpose is “to heighten awareness so that we will all be on the lookout for the signs of other possible cases.”
The district saw 17 positive cases of COVID-19 during the week ending Sept. 17, and there were 24 cumulative cases among both staff and students since the beginning of the school year Sept. 7.
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