WINONA, Minn. (KWNO)-Winona Area Public Schools (WAPS) will begin offering free COVID-19 test kits to middle and high school students this week.
The test kids will be available in the nurse’s office at Winona Middle School, Winona Senior High School, and Winona Area Learning Center on Tuesday, May 11, and again on Tuesday, May 25. The kits are required to be returned and completed by the next day.
“Testing remains a valuable tool in slowing the spread of COVID-19 in our schools and community,” WAPS COVID-19 Coordinator Jackie Henderson said. “There has been an increase in the number of positive COVID-19 cases in Winona, especially among school-age children. We hope that all middle and high school students take advantage of this testing program so we can finish the school year healthy and safe and in the classroom.”
The number of new cases of COVID-19 among Winona Area Public Schools (WAPS) staff and students decreased this week. The number of students and staff going into quarantine also declined.
Between April 29 and May 5, five new cases of COVID-19 were reported among WAPS students and staff, down from seven the previous week. There were also 77 staff members and students who went into quarantine between April 29 and May 5, representing a decrease from 123 the week prior.
“These cases were from a community spread, which is what we’re finding when we do have positive cases in,” Superintendent Annette Freiheit said at the School Board’s May 6 meeting. “Our students that are getting this are actually very asymptomatic and come to school, and then start to show symptoms and end up getting tested.”
WAPS to offer free COVID test kits for middle, high school students (5/7/2021)
Winona Area Public Schools will begin offering free COVID-19 test kits for middle and high school students beginning next week.
The test kids will be available in the nurse’s office at Winona Middle School, Winona Senior High School and Winona Area Learning Center on Tuesday, May 11, and again on Tuesday, May 25. Students must return the completed test kit the day after pick-up (Wednesday, May 12, and Wednesday, May 26), so the school district can send it to the lab for processing. Results will be available 24-48 hours after the kits are sent to the lab.
WAPS’ racial disparity in discipline persists (5/5/2021)
Black students at Winona Area Public Schools (WAPS) were suspended seven times more often than their white peers last school year. As the district nears the end of a three-year agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) to reduce the disparity in discipline between students of color and white students, that disparity remains largely unchanged.
Later this year, WAPS will submit a final report to the MDHR regarding suspension rates. The district is one of many that entered agreements with the department. “We all agree that kids can’t learn if they’re not in the classroom,” former MDHR Commissioner Kevin Lindsey told the Winona Post in 2018.
(5/5/2021)
Eighth-grade students at Winona Middle School are learning in-person again. Four COVID-19 cases and 154 possible exposures at the eighth-grade level led Winona Area Public Schools (WAPS) officials to move that grade to distance learning from April 21 to May 3. Meanwhile, however, WAPS reported that district-wide there were seven new cases and 123 students and staff in quarantine between April 22 and April 28.
“We were not notified of any other positive cases linked to the eighth grade, out of those four cases that we did have and that we did report,” WAPS COVID-19 Coordinator Jacqueline Henderson said.
The seven new cases were spread out among the district’s buildings and grade levels, Henderson said, with about half at the elementary level and half at the middle and high school levels. The 123 new instances of quarantining were similarly spread out, she added. “This did not do a significant disruption to learning and teaching for other clas