Penns Valley’s recent closure has helped the school avoid a dangerous number of COVID-19 cases. As of December 15, 2020, PVASD had a total of only two cases of COVID-19. One in the high school and one in Centre Hall Elementary.

Penns Valley’s decision to close all their schools for about two weeks in late November and early December really helped with case numbers. The decision to close and clean was made after cases began to spike in the district as a whole.

Penns Valley has now reopened but not at full capacity. They’ve begun a hybrid-mode set up for learning. It involves three groups of students going to school on different days of the week.

The grey group goes all week while the other two (blue and white) either go Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday. Wednesday everyone is at home. There is also the option for students to stay online if they would like to.

While there may only be two positive COVID-19 cases there are a fair amount of people in quarantine. There are a total of forty-seven people in quarantine. That is 42 students and 5 staff across all four school buildings.

The school hopes that with the cleaning they can avoid a full closure again. The administration currently feels that the school is in a very safe position with its current way of learning.

It should also be noted that PVASD’s holiday break begins in a week. It will be very interesting to see how Penns Valley handles the fallout of people traveling during this time. Once the school closes for the break it is expected to reopen on January 4th, baring any COVID-19 delays.