Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By CHARITY SMITH
Bessemer — The Bessemer Area School District has moved two of its elementary classes to virtual learning as a result of exposure to COVID-19.
Following the guidance of the health department, students in Megan Wilson’s kindergarten class will be virtual for the remainder of this week, said superintendent Dan Niemi. He said that students in Alexis Headley’s fourth grade class also went virtual on Monday as a result of exposure.
According to Niemi, the infected fourth grade student had been out of school since Jan. 8, so the exposure to the fourth grade class was limited. However, the kindergarten student was in class at least two days last week, before becoming ill, he said. This resulted in the need for a longer quarantine period for the kindergarten students, he said.
“So, that’s the pickle we’re in,” Niemi said. “We’re still dealing with COVID and we’re still dealing with making sure that our kids stay safe, and our staff and the community. Hopefully, we get better soon. We just keep battling.”
Niemi said that it is easy to “lose sight on the target,” and not worry about (COVID) so much, but people still need to worry about it.
“It’s very much on our radar as far as admin goes. We are taking appropriate precautions, but we do have a lot of kids that are in school now, so that is a good thing,” he said. “Hopefully, we start seeing the end of the tunnel pretty soon.”
