Lindbergh School District’s reopening plan has worked so far, with 83 students benefiting from St. Louis County’s modified quarantine opportunity.

Modified quarantine is a tool granted to any St. Louis County school district that requires universal masking. It allows students who come in contact with someone who is COVID positive to stay in school as long as they stay asymptomatic.

Chief Human Resources Officer Brian McKinney said last year without modified quarantine a lot of healthy kids were sent home when they may not have been sick.

“We’ve been able to take a different approach and it’s helped us keep students in schools. As we sit here today, there are 83 students, grades K-12, that if we were using quarantine from last year, would be home right now,” McKinney said.

There have been 43 positive cases reported across students and staff, with only nine student cases occurring from school contacts as of Sept. 4. At that time, 106 students had received full out of school quarantine. McKinney also reports 85 percent of staff has reported to be vaccinated.

McKinney said there isn’t a set point where Lindbergh would stop requiring masks because the data can change so quickly.

“We don’t have a magic number or a metric that we would look at to say ‘When we get to this place the decision will be made to take masks off and make them optional in schools,’” McKinney said. 

He said if positivity levels can reach low points like May or June then the conversation will be had.