UMATILLA COUNTY — As schools have returned to in-person classes in the spring, the Oregon Health Authority has started to record small outbreaks of COVID-19 among students across Umatilla County.

According to the state’s weekly outbreak report, schools have reported 66 student cases in Umatilla County since the beginning of April, the first full month most county schools began offering in-person classes again. More than two-thirds of those cases have originated from the Pendleton and Hermiston school districts.

Instead of a large outbreak, schools are seeing smaller pockets of infection at various schools. Umatilla County Public Health Director Joe Fiumara said the county is tracing many of these cases to extracurricular activities rather than broad, in-school spread.

Still, the number of students with confirmed cases of COVID-19 is continuing to grow: OHA reported 19 new student cases this week alone.

The state isn’t forcing schools to close their entire building after a confirmed cases, but it still has an effect on student education.

“If we have to quarantine people because they haven’t either been vaccinated or they’ve contracted the virus, it’s probably going to impact their learning,” said Pendleton School District Superintendent Chris Fritsch. “I don’t see any way around that and I don’t know that, in any future guidance, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch that we’re going to have to exclude people that are sick from school.”

According to OHA, Pendleton has reported 21 student cases since April, with all of its schools, excepting Hawthorne Alternative High School, reporting at least one case in May.

At other Umatilla County school districts, superintendents are insistent the cases aren’t evidence of school spread.

State reports show a total of 21 students in the Hermiston School District tested positive for COVID-19, spread across six of its schools. Superintendent Tricia Mooney said based on the limited information the county health department gives the school district, it appears the virus isn’t spreading through classrooms once one student falls ill.

“I think our precautions and safety measures are working, definitely,” she said.

Vaccinations helping

Teachers who are vaccinated don’t have to quarantine if a student in their classroom tests positive, so Mooney said it has been helpful that as more staff have gotten vaccinated, there have been fewer instances of teachers needing to quarantine. She said the district doesn’t know the vaccination status of all its staff and students, but in accordance with OHA guidelines, if a staff member presents proof of vaccination to the district they are able to go without a mask in settings where students are not present, such as meetings with other staff.

Umatilla Superintendent Heidi Sipe echoed Mooney’s comments.

According to OHA data, Umatilla School District has had a total of 10 students test positive for COVID-19 between its three schools, with the latest cases attributed to May 11 at McNary Heights Elementary School and Umatilla High School. Sipe said cases reported have so far appeared to come from exposures students had outside the classroom, and have not spread to the rest of the students’ classmates. That’s an indicator masks, social distancing and other safety measures are working, she said.

“To our knowledge we still haven’t had any school transmission,” she said.

Schools want clarity

One thing the district has run into is sibling groups getting sick at home, causing, in one case, about 100 students to be quarantined across all three of the district’s schools.

Sipe said when a student tests positive for COVID-19 and the school is notified, the school then submits a list of the student’s classes, the seating chart for those classes, the attendance record of the students in those classes and their contact information to Umatilla County Public Health. The health department then makes a determination of which students need to quarantine and contacts those students directly.

The result is the district does not know who was asked to quarantine unless the parents or students let them know. The district asks for students to show the letter from the health department to be excused for their absence, so students can’t claim to be quarantining when they’re really just skipping school. But Sipe said she is concerned there could be students the health department asked to quarantine but showed up at school anyway.

She said it has been frustrating that in some cases people have made false statements on social media about COVID-19 cases at the schools, but she has been unable to correct the record because she does not want to share personal medical information about a staff member or student. She encouraged parents to contact their child’s school directly if they have questions.

Fritsch, the Pendleton superintendent, compared making decisions on COVID-19 issues like being a referee at a football game: Half of the audience is going to cheer the decision while the other half will disapprove of it.

Heading into next year, Fritsch said he hopes the state will make some changes to its COVID-19 rules so they better align with each other. For instance, the school social distancing standard is 3 feet, but whenever there is a suspected exposure, the county is required to contact trace all children within 6 feet of the potential exposure.

While the Oregon Department of Education has yet to publicly release its COVID-19 guidance for next year, Fritsch said he expects it to more closely align with the recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Reporter Bryce Dole contributed to this feature.