The Foothills School Division has reopened C. Ian McLaren school in Black Diamond after a positive case of COVID-19 was found there Monday, November 2.

Superintendent Chris Fuzessy says the investigation by Alberta Health Services is still ongoing.

"There's a bit of a lag in contact tracing at this point as we understand it, so we made some decisions in the meantime to re-open the school out of an abundance of caution, self isolating one class and some staff members as well," he says.

He says the decision to close the school Monday may have caused some hardships for parents but staff and student safety remains their top priority and it was too early in the day to get a dialogue with Alberta Health Services to determine how best to intervene.

Assistant superintendent Drew Chipman says it is a good reminder for everyone to stay home if they do show symptoms according to the AHS guidelines.

Monday was the first day that a runny nose or sore throat were removed from the COVID symptom list.

Fuzessy says the two new cases at C. Ian McLaren and Foothills Composite High School in Okotoks, plus one the week before at the high school, are not a huge surprise.

"We have seen a significant increase of cases across the province, specifically in the Calgary Zone and the Edmonton Zone and from the outset Dr. (Deena) Hinshaw has talked about if there increased cases in the community there will be cases in the school, and we're taking the steps necessary to keep our staff and students safe through the decisions that we're making," Fuzessy says.

He says there is an engagement opportunity for parents to ask questions about the division's COVID response through their web site.

During September there was a lot more uptake on the web site but that's trickled down over October, going into November.

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