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Fremont Middle School goes remote for 1 week due to COVID-19 cases, over 100 quarantines

After more than 100 students and staff were quarantined due to possible exposure to COVID-19 positive students, the school has temporarily moved all classes online.

FREMONT, Ohio — Back to remote learning.

That's what students and teachers are dealing with at Fremont Middle School.

Fremont's middle school has no students this week, as all classes from 6th to 8th grade have been temporarily moved to remote learning.

"We had about 150 students out of our middle school quarantined," explained Superintendent Jon Detwiler. "Now, that's out of about 10 positive cases. Because we know it doesn't take long when you're sitting at lunch, sitting in class, sitting on the bus and you can't maintain distances well, not everyone is wearing masks; all of a sudden those quarantine numbers really get you."

The quarantine rules are more stringent for Fremont schools as they have not implemented a mask mandate for this school year.

"We're nine days in at the school and unfortunately the quarantine rules are kind of what we thought would be our issue has come true," said Detwiler.

Detwiler says the teachers were prepared to transition to online learning and were able to pivot into remote learning easily over the weekend.

But Detwiler says this mass quarantine may bring talk of a possible district-wide mask mandate back into the conversation.

"But unfortunately we still have that quarantine rule. Because as soon as you mask up, you can be within just outside of three feet and not be quarantined; and for us, three feet is a pretty magical number," said Detwiler.

Detwiler says that his administration and school nurses will be working closely with the county health department on whether or not the quarantine at the middle school will be lifted after this week or will continue on through next week.

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