ANSONIA — The public schools superintendent sent a letter home Thursday saying a person in the district’s pre‑k program tested positive for COVID-19.
The person was last in the facility on Sept. 21, according to the letter. The letter, which was posted as an image to social media by a resident, does not indicate whether the person who tested positive was a student or staff member.
According to posts on social media, the positive test involved a pre‑k class housed within Mead Elementary School.
CORRECTION: The school superintendent emailed The Valley Indy Thursday evening at 8 p.m. and said the Pre‑K COVID incident occurred at the pre‑K program at Ansonia Middle School in the modulars.
The letter states that the transmission was limited to a single “cohort” (classroom). That class will not return to school until Tuesday, Oct. 9.
“Ansonia Public Schools is working closely with the Naugatuck Valley Health District to perform contact tracing,” the letter, signed by Superintendent Joseph DiBacco, read. “If your child was determined to have been in close contact with the positive individual, you will be contacted by the school and/or health district with instructions on quarantining your child for 14 days from the exposure to the known case.”
Any staff or students that need to be tested for COVID-19 should call Griffin Hospital’s Occupational Medicine Center at 203 944 3718, according to the letter.
Griffin Hospital also maintains a COVID-19 Information Hotline at 203 204‑1053.
There have been 1,821 positive COVID-19 tests in the lower Valley since March (as of Sept. 23). Of those, 1.3 percent of the patients were under age 9.
As of 7 p.m. Thursday, the letter from the school district did not appear to have been posted on the school district’s website or Facebook page (the superintendent sent The Valley Indy a copy shortly after this post appeared online).
The Valley Indy is asking for the public’s help to track COVID-19 transmissions in our schools.
