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BELLEFONTE -- Bellefonte Area High School has gone remote.
Late Tuesday afternoon, students, parents and families in the school district were notified that the school would be closed for the rest of the week. All sports and extracurricular activities are postponed as well due to the increasing numbers of COVID-19 in the district.
"Since this Monday, we have confirmed five positive COVID cases with high school students. These cases are on our current 14-day rolling average. We have also seen a general increase in cases in the past week and a half in the community," high school principal Michael Fedisson said in an email.
The closure came as a directive from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the email said.
"Given our school size and community transmission rate, it is recommended by the Pennsylvania Department of Health that we close the high school for five days. As such, we are going to close the high school from (Wednesday) through this Sunday to allow for deep cleaning and to reset our 14-day rolling average," Fedisson said.
At Tuesday night's regularly-scheduled school board meeting, superintendent Tammie Burnaford talked about the closure.
"We got a notification of two more cases at the high school, which puts six cases on our 14-day rolling calendar at the high school. One of those cases will come off of the calendar on (April 22) because it's an older case, but the other five are going to be on our calendar until May 1. We have three or four more students who are being tested who have symptoms," Burnaford said.
According to Burnaford, the cases are connected to "one particular activity."
Multiple sources at the district confirmed to The Express that the activity is the Bellefonte Area High School baseball team.
"It is what it is," Burnaford said.
According to the email, students were "expected to follow their regular class schedule and join via Google Classroom and Google Meet."
Burnaford said that she is concerned with the transmission in the district.
"First of all, it seems to be spreading very easily and very rapidly among our students. A lot of our staff have been vaccinated, so that's been helpful. I think we're up to almost 30 cases since April 1. Of those 30 cases, only two of them have been staff members. We have higher numbers now and we have more of an outbreak now than we had in the wintertime. I don't know why it's spreading so quickly and easily. Maybe it's the variant," she said.
During the closure, BAHS students that have been learning via full remote or BeLA options may attend CPI in-person during their normal a.m./p.m. time, but must provide their own transportation to and from CPI. If students in full remote or BeLA options do not have their own transportation to attend CPI, they should join CPI virtually, the email said.
Burnaford hopes that everyone in the district will remain vigilant.
"It's the time to be vigilant, because we have a lot of things coming up," Burnaford said, "and we don't want to lose those things."
The Bellefonte Class of 2021 is scheduled to have its senior trip to Hersheypark on Friday, April 30. There is a senior breakfast/class picnic scheduled for May and graduation is slated for Thursday, June 3 at Rogers Stadium. The school district canceled the Senior Ball earlier this month. Bellefonte is the lone Centre County school not holding a Senior Ball/Prom.
School is scheduled to re-open on Monday, April 26.