A COVID outbreak at La Pine High School has forced nearly half of its students and staff into quarantine and the entire student body back to online learning until early next month.
Julianne Repman, communications director for Bend-La Pine Schools, said 15 people associated with the school had been diagnosed with COVID.
“The number of students and staff not available for in-person learning makes regular operation, from academics to activities and athletics, impractical,” Repman said. “Classes will be taught on WebEx and supported through Canvas until June 4, when in-person classes resume.”
That date also happens to be the day of La Pine High School’s graduation ceremony, but the current outbreak won’t impact that, Repman said.
It’s the latest in a string of COVID cases hampering student learning at Bend-La Pine Schools.
Earlier this spring the district had about 800 students quarantined at one point due to outbreaks or COVID contact traces at various schools.
In elementary schools, COVID cases had entire classes back to distance learning.
At the high school and middle school levels, hundreds of individual students were forced to stay home and try to play catch up while their classmates continued in person.
It was such a disruption that the district shortened the school day for most high schoolers so teachers could have more time to work with the students who were falling behind.
The district’s updated COVID dashboard shows 156 total cases in the last 28 days, including 13 at La Pine High School and 32 at Bend High.
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