COVID outbreak shuts down Henderson school, shifts students to remote learning

Lamping Elementary School in Henderson is switching to distance education starting Tuesday due to an unknown number of COVID-19 cases.

The school will operate under distance education through Aug. 27 due to “multiple individuals” testing positive, Principal Robert Solomon said in a Monday letter to parents. The notification did not say whether the cases affected students or staff, or both.

Students who are asymptomatic can return to face-to-face classes Aug. 30, he said.

The move to distance learning comes on the second week of school as the Las Vegas Valley sees high COVID-19 case numbers driven by the more contagious delta variant.

Clark County School District campuses opened Aug. 9 with full-time in-person classes for this school year.

Lamping Elementary parents whose child was identified as a close contact — defined as being within 6 feet of someone who tested positive for a total of 15 minutes — will be contacted directly by the Clark County School District or Southern Nevada Health District and will need to be quarantined for 10 days, according to the letter.

Parents will receive additional information from the school and their child’s teacher about how to participate in distance education.

“Please know that we appreciate your cooperation during these challenging times,” Solomon said. “The District has taken precautions in accordance with reopening plans to limit further risk to others.”

The school district has reported 452 COVID-19 cases since July 1 and of those, 181 affected students, according to its online case dashboard. This month alone, 237 cases have been reported.

The school district’s online case tracker doesn’t include information about how many people are in quarantine.

Last week, Foothill High School in Henderson notified parents that a person tested positive for COVID-19. It didn’t specify if it was a student or an employee, or how many people were in quarantine.

Also last week, two dozen students at Coral Academy of Science Las Vegas’ Windmill campus, a public charter school, were placed in quarantine after a student tested positive.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.