COVID-19 positives identified at Wasilla High, Butte Elementary

MAT-SU — The Mat-Su Borough School District announced two more positive cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. Wasilla High School and Butte Elementary School both announced positives within their school buildings. Butte Elementary will remain closed on Wednesday and reopen on Thursday and Wasilla High School will reopen on Wednesday.

“When we were starting our mitigation plans this summer, we didn’t really know what the process was going to look like. We had ideas from talking to public health and talking to DHSS, we just hadn’t practiced that yet and so I think a lot of what we’re seeing now is the collaboration and the partnership that the district has with public health is just supporting our efforts to keep schools open and keep them safe,” said MSBSD Public Information Officer Jillian Morrissey.

In total 10 positives have been identified at eight separate MSBSD schools. The school closure at Pioneer Peak, however, was the result of caution after a false positive. The person in question tested negative following the school closure. Machetanz Elementary and Palmer High each had two positive cases identified within their schools. Colony High School, Colony Middle, Tanaina Elementary, Meadow Lakes Elementary, Wasilla High School and Butte Elementary have all identified one positive case, with the cases at Butte and Wasilla still under public health investigation.

“Public health has to work through their process and so if we have notification of a positive case and we can start working with public health to figure out close contacts, by the time we’re meeting as a group, that may shift the way that we’re making decisions about can the school building still reopen or not depending on positive case and close contacts,” said Morrissey.