County fails to meet criteria for additional class reopenings

Additional elementary students in Quay County won’t begin classes after Labor Day as previously anticipated because it didn’t meet the coronavirus-based state criteria for school reopenings.

For schools to offer in-person classes to all elementary students, their counties were required to have coronavirus case rates of less than 8 per 100,000 people and a COVID-19 test positivity rate below 5% from Aug. 19 to Sept. 1.

Quay County missed on both benchmarks, according to data collected by the state’s Department of Health. It had a caseload of 9.4 per 100,000 people and a test positivity rate of 7.3%. That is in the red zone, the worst rating. Only counties designated in the green zone could reopen fully to elementary students.

Quay County saw 11 cases of COVID-19 from Aug. 19 to Sept. 1, including one death.

Human Services Secretary David Scrase said during a videoconference Thursday afternoon with Education Secretary Ryan Stewart they would re-examine the numbers for all counties in two weeks.

All Quay County schools had been slated to offer in-person classes for all elementary students Sept. 8.

Tucumcari is scheduled instead to hold in-person classes from prekindergarten through third grade on Tuesday as it has since mid-August.

Logan Municipal Schools will begin in-person classes Tuesday for prekindergarten through second grade. Logan delayed its start of the school year because of a COVID-19 outbreak in the village that affected at least three staff members.

House will offer in-person classes for prekindergarten through second grade Tuesday.

San Jon Municipal Schools announced Thursday afternoon it would offer only online classes Tuesday; that originally was going to be its first day of school after its board delayed the start of the school year.

The counties of Roosevelt, Hidalgo, Lea, Luna, Eddy and Chavez also were deemed in the red zone for school reopenings because their caseloads and test positivity rates were too high. Dona Ana County was in the orange zone. Curry and McKinley counties were in the yellow zone.

Area counties in the green zone included Union, Guadalupe, Harding, De Baca and San Miguel.