Schuylkill County had a surge of COVID-19 cases last week, which prompted an important meeting with the county’s superintendents on Monday.

“We were contacted Sunday afternoon by the deputy secretary from PDE (Pennsylvania Department of Education) regarding a meeting with our Schuylkill County superintendents,” said Schuylkill Intermediate Unit 29 Executive Director Dr. Greg Koons. “We had a feeling it was apparent that it was regarding this county moving into the new substantial status.”

Koons said the department of education does not have the authority to hypothetically shut down a school district, however, the department of health does.

“They have a responsibility to meet with any counties when they move into a substantial status,” Koons said. “There were two representatives from the department of health that shared about the county transmission levels. They talked about the incident rate per 100,000 residents and the percent of positivity. They want to wait another 7-day reporting period before they make any concrete decisions.”

This week, the Tamaqua Area School District reported three COVID-19 cases.

“The school has communicated throughout the day with members of the department of health collecting data, analyzing factors of transmission and developing recommendations,” noted Tamaqua Superintendent Ray Kinder in a letter addressed to district families on Wednesday.

“After this consultation, it was determined that no additional individuals were identified as being at risk, and quarantine is not recommended for anyone else related to the school setting. The timing of testing and symptoms are the major factors that have allowed us to avoid additional quarantined individuals.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its definition of what being in “close contact” to someone with COVID-19 is considered. The CDC website states close contact as “someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period, starting two days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, two days prior to test specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated.”

There are currently no school districts in Schuylkill County that are 100 percent virtual, Koons added. But there are plenty of active hybrid models and a few districts such as Tamaqua that are operating in person daily with a separate online option for students.

“Our schools are motivated to maximize the instructional face-to-face time that we can do,” Koons said. “We do believe this is the best; within public education, this is what we pride ourselves on. But we also want our students to be safe.”

Koons said there should be more updates this coming Monday.