COVID clusters force E.M. Rollins school to send two classrooms home

Ebony Duell, Henderson (N.C.) Daily Dispatch
·2 min read

Sep. 3—HENDERSON — E.M. Rollins Elementary School currently has two COVID-19 clusters impacting two classrooms.

Officials notified families on Aug. 30 of the clusters and asked them to pick up their children from school. The students from each classroom have to quarantine for two weeks before returning to school.

Sandy Hubbard says her great-nephew was a part of a fifth-grade class that was sent home to quarantine. Hubbard says that her great-nephew's siblings also were sent home because they may have been exposed to the virus through him.

Hubbard says her nephew is staying with his grandmother because his mother did not want to expose the other children in the home. She says that as of Wednesday, her nephew did not receive any school work from Rollins and, even if he did, his grandmother does not have any internet access in the home.

"Fourteen days is a lot of time for him to sit around and watch television," said Hubbard

Hubbard says she feels like the families were told abruptly with little time to prepare for virtual learning.

Vance County Schools officials say the school nurse or principal personally contacts the family of every student impacted by a COVID-19 cluster.

Students are participating in virtual class sessions taking place each day and elementary students can receive their work through Google classroom, district officials say. The school system also has VCS Community Hotpots, as well as free Spectrum wifi hotspots that can be found on the VCS webpage.

The district encourages students who have internet access issues to let the school know so they can address each situation individually.

EM Rollins students can return to school on Sept. 14, based on guidance from Granville-Vance Public Health and the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

At the school level, their layers of protection include; face covering, temperature checks, desk shields, physical distancing, hand washing, etc. Officials say every area of the building is sanitized throughout the day, every day with special attention given to those where clusters were.