Lewisburg Elementary School brings students back in-person after one day of fully remote learning

LEWISBURG, WV (WOAY) – Last Thursday evening, Greenbrier County Lead School Nurse Paula McCoy was notified by the county Health Department that there was a positive COVID case associated with Lewisburg Elementary School.

As a result, the school moved to remote learning for Friday in following the county’s protocols.

“We had had an individual linked to Lewisburg Elementary who had tested positive late that afternoon,” McCoy said. “So, therefore, it was too late in the day to do contact tracing, so we had to close Lewisburg for Friday to do the contact tracing at that school, and then to do enhanced cleaning efforts also.”

Greenbrier showed up as green on the DHHR color-coding map this past Saturday. The county’s re-entry plan determined that Lewisburg Elementary would be good to go for Monday pending contact tracing.

“Our re-entry plan is that we can offer a five day week in-person instruction for our elementary schools at that level,” McCoy said. “Now, we do continue to work closely with our health department and monitor our situation locally.”

Greenbrier school nurses have improved efficiency regarding contact tracing on isolated COVID cases. This is part of the reason that Lewisburg Elementary was able to come back on a three-day turnaround after Thursday’s news.

“We have a plan and now we’re working the plan,” McCoy said. “And it is working. And all of our school nurses are very good now, very astute at contact tracing. We can pull it off very quickly. We all carry tape measurers with us now, to do the measurements to see who was within six feet of the positive people.”

The hope remains that it will never become routine, but the constant learning and adjusting has allowed Greenbrier to execute its back-to-school plan in a safe manner throughout this semester.

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