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Courtesy of the Ecole Montrose Facebook page
COVID IN SCHOOLS

Ecole Montrose placed under COVID-19 outbreak status

Feb 18, 2021 | 4:45 PM

A fifth Grande Prairie School has been placed under a COVID-19 outbreak status by Alberta Health, with Ecole Montrose now reporting between five and nine cases tied to the school.

Other schools in the similar category are Alexander Forbes School and Charles Spencer High School. Though those schools within the Grande Prairie Public School Division are placed under such a designation, Deputy Superintendent James Robinson says not all cases in these schools have occurred within the school setting.

“What causes us to move to ‘Outbreak Status’ is members of the school community who have tested positive, but were not in attendance during their period of contagiousness. They do not impact the school community, but they do get counted as school cases,” said Robinson, in an email to EverythingGP.

“Because of this, some of our schools were recently moved to ‘Outbreak Status’, though they have actually had less than 5 instances of individuals attending our schools while contagious in the last 28 days.”

Alberta Health places schools first under an alert status when two or more confirmed cases are identified within the school. Public health officials then initiate an investigation to monitor risk level and work with the school, with additional cases in the school being included in the investigation as long as there is less than 28 days between subsequent cases.

With those three schools under an outbreak status, both École Nouvelle Frontière and Hillside Christian School are also under an outbreak status, with 10 or more cases tied to them.

Seven Grande Prairie schools remain under an active alert status, meaning there have been between two and four cases reported there. Those include Parkside Montessori, St. Catherine School, Riverstone School, Roy Bickell School, St. Clement School, Grande Prairie Christian School and Isabel Campbell School.