Christian Heritage outbreak is over

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This article was published 05/10/2021 (1569 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Christian Heritage School’s COVID-19 outbreak is officially over, public health officials said Monday afternoon.

While the school’s status was only relegated to a single line in the province’s COVID-19 bulletin, a representative from Prairie Mountain health later confirmed this fact, stating that an outbreak is declared “over” if the organization doesn’t register a new case after one self-isolation period of 10 days.

Christian Heritage principal Bryan Schroeder told the Sun Monday afternoon that they haven’t identified a new case since last Wednesday, less than a week ago.

“It takes a couple of days for the cases to show up on the provincial dashboard or in the media, but I’m thankful for no more cases at this point,” he wrote in an email.

The public was first tipped off about the outbreak on Sept. 23, when the province announced through its COVID update that one class at Christian Heritage had transitioned to remote learning due to this exposure, which was linked to the delta variant.

The province first notified the school about the spread on Sept. 18, with an official notice being sent out to parents that same day.

The case count at Christian Heritage continued to climb, eventually peaking with 17 cases on Friday.

School officials eventually said that their Grade 3 class was moved to remote learning due to the outbreak, with individuals from Grade 1, 4, 5, 6 and kindergarten classes also being impacted.

However, Christian Heritage maintains that only the Grade 3 cases were acquired at the school, with all other cases originating from outside the institution.

Schroeder also confirmed on Monday that the Grade 3 class has since returned to in-person instruction.

“It’s been a stressful two weeks,” the principal said. “I was discouraged every time I found out that there was another positive case. I’m thankful the school transmission was limited, but this outbreak affected a lot of people’s lives in our school community. It’s been hard on all of us.”

Schroeder admitted that even he contracted the virus over the last couple of weeks, alongside three of his children.

The principal only experienced mild symptoms, which he attributes to being fully vaccinated.

“However, my thoughts and prayers go out to each person and family affected. Some have not fully recovered yet,” he wrote.

Schroeder thanks parents and staff members for keeping students engaged throughout the disruption.

“Teachers worked extra hours under additional stress for the sake of ensuring student learning continued,” he wrote. “Understandably, parents kept healthy children home to ensure their safety. It was a challenging stretch for everyone.”

Christian Heritage isn’t the only Brandon-area school to endure new COVID-19 cases since the K-12 academic year began Sept. 7.

Since then, individuals from local schools such as Vincent Massey High School (Grade 12 class), Riverheights School (Grade 1 class), Betty Gibson School (Grade 1/2 class) École New Era School (Grade 5/6 class), Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School (Grade 10) and École O’Kelly School (three separate grades) have also contracted the virus.

But unlike these other schools, Christian Heritage isn’t managed by the Brandon School Division and falls under the jurisdiction of Christian Schools International.

Christian Heritage officials still operate under the purview of the provincial government and are required to follow the same public health orders as other schools.

“Even though we followed public health protocols at CHS, COVID still got into the school and spread very quickly. It was frustrating,” Schroeder wrote. “We were proactive, and I’m thankful that the school transmission stopped because we followed public health protocols.”

As of Monday evening, the province has identified a total of 181 COVID-19 cases in Manitoba K-12 since the beginning of the fall term.

Of these 181 cases, 155 cases are students and the remaining 26 are school staff.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson