On Monday, eight Lake Region High School students tested positive for Covid-19.

On Tuesday, students returned to remote learning.

SAD 61 Superintendent Al Smith issued a message via the district’s website Monday afternoon regarding the switch from in-person to remote learning.

“Identificationof direct contacts of these students requires extensive contact tracingand we are still continuing to work through this process,” Smith’s message read. “Therefore,Tuesday, Sept. 21, will be a fully remote instructionalday.”

LRHS Principal Maggie Thornton e-mailed students and parents the remote day schedule. Staff reported to the high school, as usual. 

On Tuesday, student-athletes were allowed to participate in scheduled practices and games provided they were either vaccinated or participating in pool testing or were not a direct contact of the current eight positive cases.

The varsity girls’ soccer game at Sacopee Valley was postponed, while varsity golf at Lake Kezar Country Club in Lovell and varsity boys’ soccer home game against Sacopee Valley were held.

On Wednesday, LRHS was back to in-person instruction.

Last Friday, theMaine Department of Education, in partnership with Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services and Center for Disease Control and Prevention, released a dashboard of reported school related cases of Covid-19 for the past 30 days. This new dashboard will incorporate the previously available information on outbreak status. 

The Department of Education will update the dashboard weekly with reported cases over the past 30 days, by school. Schools for whom an outbreak has been determined will be noted in the dashboard with an orange bar. Schools are listed in the table alphabetically, and the corresponding SAU is included.

The data included in the table reflect cases reported by Maine schools through a case reporting form for school related cases, including staff and students. This is similar to the method used during the 2020-2021 school year. 

Not all cases submitted by Maine schools have been confirmed by Maine CDC. An outbreak investigation is opened by Maine CDC after detecting three or more epidemiologically linked, confirmed cases among different households during a 14-day period. An outbreak investigation is closed when there has not been a new case associated with the school for 14 days (one incubation period). Community-based transmission continues to drive case rates in schools.

As of Sept. 15, there were 1,390 total reported Covid-19 cases. Hermon High School had the largest outbreak of cases, 36, while Hermon M.S. had 20. Other schools experiencing more than 10 cases included:

Piscataquis Elementary, 25

Piscataquis Secondary, 14

Hampden Academy, 22

Mildred Day School (Kennebunk), 22

Noble High School, 15,

Old Town High School, 14

Oxford Hills High School, 13

Here, SAD 61 posted three community letters this past week identifying positive cases — 9/13, a student at Songo Locks School; 9/17, a student at Lake Region M.S. and two students at Crooked River School; 9/20, a student at Lake Region M.S.

Nearby Fryeburg Academy and Molly Ockett Middle School had no cases during this reporting period.