Tahlequah Superintendent: Start Of School Year Sees 10 Times More COVID Cases Than Last Year

Tahlequah Public Schools announced Friday all elementary students will be in distance learning next week because of staff shortages and rising COVID-19 cases. 

The district said its case count is ten times worse now than it was at the start of school last year.  

The move to distance learning for elementary students did not come as a surprise, after a letter this week from the superintendent made it clear the district was preparing for a shut down.  

Parents who have kids in all the district’s elementary schools will not pick up their kids from school again until the day after Labor Day.  

"Luckily I'm in a job that I'm able to stay home with my kids,” Father Sam Cornell said.  

While there is no mask requirement, Cornell said his kids are masked up in class. 

"We send them with masks, and they know their safety procedures and what they're supposed to do,” he said.  

In a letter to parents, Superintendent Leon Ashlock highlighted the stark difference between the start of school last year and this year, saying, "Last year in the first ten days of school, we had 10 positive cases of COVID. This year we have had over 100 cases in the first ten days." 

Just down the road at Hulbert Public Schools, kids enjoyed recess ahead of the weekend. Hulbert Superintendent Jolyn Choate said the district's mask mandate, which defies state law, is making a difference.  

Choate said 154 students were in quarantine last Wednesday August 18th. That evening, the school board passed the mask mandate. It went into effect the next day.  

The district said Friday August 27, there were 22 students in quarantine. No school sites are currently in distance learning.   

Back in Tahlequah, father Oscar Gutierrez notices the trend too.  

"We’ve seen last year it looked like the schools had lower numbers of positives come up when they did have the masks. And you can obviously tell now this year without the masks, there has been a higher number,” he said.  

When asked if he sees a mask mandate in his district’s future, Ashlock said in an email the district is currently following the law, adding that if state leaders want to keep schools open, it is "obvious this model is not sustainable."