Fremont-Mills Students Return To Classroom

The Fremont-Mills Community School District welcomed students back this week after an outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus forced the school into remote learning and quarantined more than 100 staff and students the previous two weeks.

Students were back in classrooms Monday morning. School activities and sports, suspended since Sept. 14, will resume this week as well.

As part of the return to the building, students and staff are required to wear masks and all desks will have clear dividers between them. The district also hired an additional custodian to assist with the building cleaning.

Fremont-Mills’ Homecoming, which had originally been scheduled for the week of Sept. 19-23, will be held this week. The homecoming parade will be Friday at 1:30 p.m. The football game Friday will be at 5:30 p.m. against undefeated Central Valley, the No. 5-ranked team in Nebraska. The Knights’ original opponent - Lenox - cancelled its game against F-M last week due to its own COVID-19 outbreak. F-M, the No. 4 ranked eight-person team in Iowa, has had three football games cancelled due to the virus. There will not be a homecoming dance.

The return to school at Fremont-Mills comes after a tense three weeks.

Beginning on Sept. 14, the district spiked with 18 confirmed cases in its K-12 building. Both staff and students were among the infected. As part of protocol, more than 100 students in the high school alone were quarantined due to possible exposure with one or more of the positive cases.

Fremont-Mills Superintendent Dave Gute did confirm Monday the district did have one additional case over the weekend to bring the total number of confirmed cases in the district to 19. Some of those infected have already returned to school. Gute also added the total number of students and staff currently in quarantine is down to 10.

On Friday, the East Mills Community School District announced it had its first confirmed case of COVID-19. The district has been in contact with and is following Mills County Public Health guidelines.

In a letter to parents, the district said the case was self reported and that the infected individual took “recommended steps to ensure the safety of others.” The letter went on to say that individual is in isolation at home will not return to school until after the isolation period and symptoms have improved. Contact tracing to determine any additional exposures is ongoing.

East Mills will remain in face-to-face learning but face coverings are now required to be worn by all students and staff when on school grounds.

The Glenwood Community School District confirmed one case of the virus at West Elementary on Thursday.