LONGVIEW, Texas — At a school board meeting Monday, the Longview Independent School District provided an update on how it's handled COVID-19 to date.
"Our staff cases throughout the year was 216, the total students 277, total cases for students and staff 493," Dennis Williams, assistant superintendent of administrative and pupil services, said. "As of Noon yesterday we had zero cases that was reported to us."
Williams says while he's worried spring break may result in a spike of COVID-19 cases.
"It’s going to take about two weeks for those results to show up," he said. "Hopefully they won’t spike as much."
The month of March so far has seen a decline in confirmed cases.
"Month of March so far we've only had three positive cases," Williams said. "[The] positive cases were right before we got out for spring break week."
Williams believes there are several factors contributing to the decline in cases including vaccinations.
"We estimated 60% of our staff has probably been vaccinated," he said.
At the beginning of the month, district employees were given the opportunity with a partnership with CHRISTUS Good Shepherd to vaccinate Longview ISD employees.
"We had at least 491 staff show up and I'm told there might have been a few more that came in on the end and they might have had some extra doses available," he said.
Williams says moving forward the district will continue following COVID-19 protocols which include face masks, social distancing and hand sanitizing.
"We would rather error on the side of caution," he said. "Therefore for the remainder of the school year, we will continue with those protocols."