COVID-19 Outbreak Affects Numerous Staff Members At Enfield School

ENFIELD, CT — An outbreak of positive COVID-19 cases has affected more than 30 members of the staff at Henry Barnard Elementary School on Shaker Road, leaving education officials scrambling to find enough staff to keep the building open.

Notification of the situation went out to parents via an email from Superintendent of Schools Chris Drezek, which was also posted Monday on the Henry Barnard website.

The message from Drezek reads:

To the Parents, Students and Staff of Henry Barnard School,

Unfortunately, this morning we were hit with a wave of COVID positive staff members that now exceeds thirty people. I commend the staff of Henry Barnard along with district staff for pulling together to keep the building operating today. However, with this amount of staff unable to come to work, and more awaiting test results, we are now faced with a supervision issue as we may no longer have enough adults in the building to safely remain open. School staff has reminded everyone in the building to bring their iPads home in the event we are forced to go remote until this wave passes. At the present time, I am not closing Barnard for tomorrow, Tuesday May 3rd, as we are doing everything we can to find additional staffing to open for tomorrow. Although I’m hopeful, I’m not optimistic that we will find the resources to open safely. I wanted to give you as much notice as possible because I understand the hardship this will cause families, but with the amount of staff members testing positive, we are exhausting every option. A discussion on tomorrow will come later in the day after we determine if we can move staff from other buildings to cover, but I wanted to be aware this was a possibility.

Thanks,

Chris

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