Panther Valley School District has temporarily closed all district buildings after two staff members tested positive for COVID-19.

Superintendent Dennis Kergick released a statement Monday morning announcing that multiple staff members in the administrative office tested positive for the virus, and all school buildings will be closed through the week.

Any district events which were scheduled for this week have been postponed. Junior-senior high school students will clean out their lockers June 8.

The lunch program for school-aged children has been canceled for the week.

Grief counseling sessions set up by Panther Valley Elementary following the untimely death of a student last week were canceled. The school is offering the sessions through video conferencing, with sign-up available online.

Kergick said some staff members are under self-quarantine for the next two weeks.

The district’s statement follows:

“Over the weekend we received reports that some central office staff members were experiencing issues revolving around COVID-19. Some staff members were tested and the results were positive for the COVID virus.

“As a result of the positive test results we felt that in the interest of safety of staff, students and guests that we close down the district buildings until we can address the situation through a thorough cleaning process and provide a safe environment for everyone involved.

“We do anticipate closing all district buildings for the week and some staff members are under a self quarantine for the next two weeks.”

Summit Hill borough has also taken steps at mitigating possible exposure to the coronavirus after a borough worker, whose wife works at Panther Valley School District, had been exposed, but tested negative.

Kevin Steber, borough emergency management coordinator, said Tuesday morning that he was notified about the possible exposure Monday and immediately put the borough’s emergency exposure protocol into place.

He said the employee is currently on a 14-day quarantine from doing any borough business or entering any borough buildings, and contact tracing has been conducted.

As a result, two Summit Hill police officers, who were in contact with the borough worker over the weekend have also been removed from the schedule and asked to quarantine until the borough worker’s COVID-19 test results come back.

Steber said that in addition, he and officer in charge Sgt. Jeff Ohl confirmed that the two police officers used proper protective equipment when out on calls during their shifts over the weekend so there was no risk to the public.

“We had well-documented procedures in place on what would happen in this situation,” Steber said.

The borough worker was last in the borough office on Thursday, Steber said, noting that the building has already been sanitized as a normal Friday morning operation so borough workers and visitors on Monday were not at risk of exposure.

The building is closed today to all borough business from the public and is open only for voting purposes and will be sanitized again tonight.

With the speedy notification and tracing, Steber said he feels confident that there is not a large threat to the Summit Hill community from the borough’s end.

He commended the employee, who is also a business owner in the borough, for taking the proper procedures with both his business shutting temporarily and with notifying the borough immediately.

With regards to hearing about a Summit Hill family also testing positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, Steber said he is not privileged to that information and had no comment.

Reporter Amy Miller contributed to this report.