North Penn Reports Additional COVID-19 Cases as Students Return to In-Person Schooling

North Penn Now Staff•

North Penn High School.

UPDATE: Nov. 9, 4: 30 p.m. - North Penn School District is now reporting a sixth positive — a student at Pennbrook Middle School — among its students and staff.

Original story follows...

North Penn School District is now reporting a total of five active in-person COVID-19 cases among students and staff, as the remainder of the in-person student body returned to school on Monday morning.

According to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard, one student from Inglewood Elementary and one staff member from Montgomery Elementary have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Those two new positives follow three positive cases which were announced last week, which included one staff member at North Penn High School, one staff member at Pennbrook Middle School and one student at Montgomery Elementary.

All five cases remain active at this time, according to the dashboard. North Penn Now has reached out to the Montgomery County Department of Health to ascertain if the student and staff cases at Montgomery Elementary are related, and we will update this article when we receive a response.

Last week, North Penn Director of School and Community Engagement Christine Liberaski said the district is not identifying job categories of those who test positive, as doing so could — in some cases — reveal the identity of the staff member. She added at the district’s COVID-19 dashboard includes teachers, administrators and support staff under the “staff” category.

At the time, the district said they were monitoring the current statewide surge in positive cases, but they planned to continue with the return to school rollout at this time.

“We are monitoring the situation very closely in conjunction with the Office of Public Health,” said Liberaski. “Our plan remains to continue with hybrid and virtual learning. We will modify as needed.”

On Friday, Montgomery County reported 194 new cases, which was the second-highest single-day increase since the beginning of the pandemic. One day later, Pennsylvania reported 4,035 new cases, which shattered the single-day high for the commonwealth as hospitalizations and deaths increase across the state.

(Editor's note: Beginning today, North Penn Now will add a section for North Penn School District to our daily coronavirus updates, which usually release in the afternoon. Additionally, we will begin providing a weekly recap of cases within the district every Monday morning.)

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