All Kindergarten Teachers at Kinder Ranch Test Positive for COVID-19
Share
All of the kindergarten teachers at Comal ISD’s Kinder Ranch Elementary School (KRES) in San Antonio have tested positive for COVID-19, according to an email from a teacher that was shared today on the Open Comal County Schools Safely Facebook page.
Olivia Weisinger, an administrator for the page, declined to name the teacher and redacted parts of her email to protect her anonymity. The email was forwarded to Open Comal County Schools Safely by a Kinder Ranch parent.
In the email, the teacher wrote:
“Good afternoon, there will be an official letter sent out soon, but I wanted to take a moment to let you know the following…All teachers in kindergarten have tested positive for covid over the last few days. I will not return to school till September 13th. Although it is optional, I would encourage wearing a mask to school. Please talk to your child about the importance of handwashing and keeping hands to self. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for your partnership. Take care.”
Comal ISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The district posts daily “active cases” at each school to Comalisd.org, but this number only reflects cases that are “self-reported” by parents and staff and does not show trends over time.
Some Comal ISD schools do release additional information, but reporting is inconsistent.
Earlier this week, for example, Smithson Valley Middle School Principal Aryn Standeford informed parents that four students/staff members from sixth, seventh and eighth grade tested positive.
“Close contacts” of these individuals are not required to quarantine.
A better way to get a snapshot of what’s happening on any given day in Comal ISD is to check graphs prepared by a parent of six Comal ISD students. Ben Toalson uses information provided on the district’s page to create his charts and maps, which are frequently shared to Open Comal Schools Safely’s Facebook page. Click here and here for daily updates.
Criticism — as well as support — for Comal ISD’s decision to send students back to school without masks and no mitigation efforts continues to build on social media.
After Comal ISD Supt. Andrew Kim today posted a Facebook video of himself “Cruisin’ Comal” with district demographer Bob Templeton, an angry parent responded with #cruisinwithcovid.
On the district’s Facebook page, she said all students in her child’s class at Spring Branch Middle School were herded into a closet today during an active shooter drill.
“All 26 students in my child’s class were locked down in a closet together to learn how to be ‘safe’ if there were an active shooter,” the parent said. “Can we come up with a protocol on how to keep our kids safe during an active pandemic? Anyone in Comal ISD attend a strategic planning meeting for if there were a health crisis, what could be done by the district to protect the children?
However, another parent said if he had to choose between COVID or getting vaccinated, he would pick COVID “all day long.”
On Thursday (Sept. 2) a KRES parent who works as a volunteer at the school but spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a third-grade teacher there is now hospitalized with the virus.
Open Comal County Schools Safely verified the parent’s identity.
The parent said she and others rely on the ‘mom’ network for information because the school only notifies grade-level parents of positive cases. She learned about the school’s kindergarten teachers through another parent of a kindergarten student.
The only recent communication from school administrators that she’s aware of related to the importance wearing masks and practicing good hand hygiene.
Parents are still allowed to join their students for lunch but she said she now limits her school visits to the carpool lane — where she’s noticed more teachers are now masked up.
BREAKING NEWS: we found out about this website & have decided 2 report our child goes 2 kindergarten @ kinder ranch elementary…there r 3 kindergarten teachers, 2 were vaccinated & 1 was unvaccinated…they had 3 substitutes 4 a total of 4 school days…this is a good school w good ppl, but none of that will ever b reported, sadly only the negative gets sunlight
Comal ISD Taxpayer, you don’t have any elementary school aged kids right? As far as following CDC or WHO guidelines, you really can’t do that anymore. They are more concerned about the economy than they are about the death count or containing COVID-19 when it first broke out. Don’t forget it is our Texas leaders that said Grandparents should be willing to sacrifice their lives so that we can continue to have a strong economy. The only problem now is that it will take young lives along with the old. As for those that survive, many will suffer scarring of the lung. You don’t get that with the flu.
I’m a little alarmed that your superintendent is on the Texas School Safety Center Board of Directors.
Of those teachers that all tested positive. How many had the vaccine and how many didn’t. This is additional data that should be analyzed.
How many kindergarten teachers are in KRES?
All you folks stroking out and criticizing Gov Abbott for protecting the freedom of Texans…chill. How about following the science instead of your emotions and personal feelings? According to CDC stats, your children are more likely to die from the flu than they are from Covid. The latest numbers show only ONE in ONE MILLION kids under 18 die from Covid. The science also shows that the VAST majority of the cloth masks most of us wear provide little to no protection when it comes to preventing virus transmission.
There are about 1,2 mill children between 5 and 17 in Florida. In just 4 weeks this summer they had 5 deaths in that age group. That would work out at 65 per year, or 13 deaths,. except it is getting worse. No where near 1 per million
Unlikely Texas would be that much better.. So, if this “fact” is made up, I have to discount the rest of the post.
Can someone verify if these teachers where vaccinated?
Survival of the fittest. Natural selection. You don’t have to argue with the anti-Vaccine and anti-maskers. Just wait.
I’d like to know how many of the teachers were vaccinated?
This is what happens when you have a pawn like Andrew Kim at the helm of an ISD (Comal ISD) who chooses school funding over the safety of staff and students. He’s a coward that is too afraid to step up and use his voice to make a change and encourage mask wearing. Instead he has decided to be “one of the crowd” of those who thinks COVID-19 will magically go away or is “fake news.” Hey Andrew, what’s your plan when COVID-19 spreads even further and affects additional members of your your staff and students? What a joke and embarrassment you are as a superintendent. Think about this Andrew, our local hospitals are filled with COVID-19 patients who are truly sick and if they are lucky, they might survive. But what you don’t see are the hospitals filled with patients whom decided to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Educate yourself, start being a leader and less of a coward!
The solution is to stop voting for republican governors like Greg Abbot who threaten schools if they impose a mask mandate. You really should direct your anger at the Governor and not the school admins that are afraid of losing their jobs and the school because of BS laws passed by republicans.
We all need to learn to live with this virus in our communities. It is not going away quickly and hand sanitizer, a piece of cloth on the face, and a few feet between kids is not going to stop it. Not to mention, the kids are sitting 3 aside on the limited number of buses. Strengthen your family’s health as best you can and show care and empathy for your neighbors, especially those with health vulnerabilities.
Covid 19 or Corona virus? Parents, please educate yourselves. A common cold, and flu varients are all forms of corona virus. If it was properly tested, with a non rapid test, then it’s worth noting. Otherwise, we just got informed that someone had a cold or the flu, and that is a normal school year.
Please educate yourself. Hopefully some will just have cold or flu like symptoms, but many won’t. Covid-19 is VERY dangerous, but if you don’t know that by now nothing I say here will convince you otherwise. Most in your situation don’t learn this until Covid-19 visits their family, which I wouldn’t wish on ANYONE. Know too many families who thought like you and didn’t clue in until someone they loved was in the hospital or worse. Get vaccinated and wear a mask until community spread is back under control and our hospitals are in good shape.
C Stage, could you please find a biology textbook and read it before posting your comments? Flu is caused by influenza virus; most cold is caused by rhinovirus; Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and adenovirus can also cause common cold. Among hundreds of different types of cold viruses, only four belong to corona virus family. Those four can be easily distinguished from COVID-19 by PCR. Please please, read a biology textbook before posting a comment like “flu varients are all forms of corona virus”. And take a look at the microscope pictures of influenza virus, rhinovirus, and corona virus. It will be the equivalent of saying “banana, strawberry, and pear are all forms of apples”
Folks, covid is endemic. The kids need to catch it before it mutates into something dangerous. The testing is flipping a coin, both false positives and false negatives. Be brave and don’t read nonsense like this article.
The article needs updating to say Aryn Standeford is the SV Middle School principal, not the high school’s.
Otherwise, the article seems pretty accurate and balanced. No mitigation is exactly correct. These are the current norms: no social distancing in the cafeteria, no directional hallways, traditional rows of desks, no reports to parents or teachers about close contacts, and very few facemasks.
We seem to be pretending that the pandemic went away and the delta variant does not exist.
This article is fake. There is a lot of information that is not correct. If you are familiar with people within the district you’d know that’s NOT the SVHS Principal and why would he be commenting on middle school Covid counts. This is bogus
This article is fake. There is a lot of information that is not correct. If you are familiar with people within the district you’d know that’s NOT the SVHS Principal and why would he be commenting on middle school Covid counts. This is bogus
Hi Kristine, thanks for the catch. We have updated the article to reflect that Aryn Standeford is a middle-school principal at SVMS, not SVHS.
There is no mitigation. I wish the governor had the courage to do what is best for the kids. If “choice” is a thing…have classes 100% masked and classes without. I can’t wait for the next fight and we don’t require any vaccines and put kids back in iron lungs.
Wow, so the author of this article clearly has an agenda…I for one, am extremely proud of the way Andrew Kim and the district have handled this ongoing situation. I thank the district for providing parents with a choice.
Has Comal ISD gone crazy? No mitigation efforts at all?