Livingston Parish, La. (BRPROUD) – Tuesday, Livingston Parish Public Schools reported 141 students are in quarantine and 17 staffers are on COVID-19 leave.
LPPS Superintendent, Joe Murphy, confirmed amongst the 158 staffer and students, six students and four employees are from the same classroom at North Corbin Junior High.
Three days after class started at NCJH, a teacher tested positive for the virus. According to LPPS, the teacher works closely with special needs students.
Murphy said, the district informed parents of the case at NCJH and said, they followed proper guidelines as instructed by the regional medical director.
“There was one positive test and due to the nature of that special education class, the regional medical director instructed us to quarantine those children and those adults in that class” said Murphy.
LPPS is the first district around the capitol area back on campus. As other districts return to in-class sessions, there’s a possibility they too could see the trend.
“We said from day one, when we we’re planning to reopen our schools that we are going to expect cases to come about” said Murphy.
Currently, LPPS district has 4,000 staff members and 26,183 students.
Murphy said, the confirmed cases makeup a small portion of the district’s population and he’s confident LPPS is doing all it can to ensure everyone is safe.
“We understand that there will be difficulties, we understand that there will be setbacks but at the end of the day, we have to try to provide the services that our community and our parent expect out of Livingston parish public schools” said Murphy.