The Catholic Education Diocese of Wagga Wagga (CEDWW) says its school leaders have been "marvellous" in following guidelines and reassuring parents following a number of COVID-19 cases among students at select primary schools.
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Early last week Kooringal's Sacred Heart Primary School closed for deep cleaning and contact tracing after a member of the school community tested positive for COVID, with Holy Trinity and Henschke primary school's also closing for the same reason later in the week.
The schools have since reopened and are operational once again, with a number of close contacts in isolation.
More than 60 close contacts have been directed to self-isolate from the Sacred Heart school community, the Murrumbidgee Local Health District confirmed.
When asked for further details around the cases at each school, including how many close contacts are in isolation from the Holy Trinity and Henschke school communities, the MLHD said they could not publicise this information as people have already been contacted directly.
CEDWW director Elizabeth O'Carrigan confirmed that cases at the schools have been among students, and that she hasn't heard of anyone becoming seriously unwell due to the virus.
"We haven't had any outbreaks in our secondary schools for quite a number of weeks now and I think that's probably due to higher rates of vaccination," she added, with children under 12 years of age currently ineligible for a COVID vaccine.
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Mrs O'Carrigan acknowledged that some parents would have been feeling anxious due to the recent school closures.
"It's always challenging for parents and I think they were worried about the threat of COVID," she said.
"Our school leaders have been absolutely marvellous in following all the guidelines that we issued to them."
Mrs O'Carrigan described the situation at each school as "quite contained", adding that some disruption to learning may have occurred when the schools were non-operational, but that student wellbeing was paramount.
"Working with [NSW Health] we've been able to get the contact tracing done reasonably quickly and the deep cleaning, and then the schools have been able to become operational, except for students who are close contacts," Mrs O'Carrigan said.
She said that moving forward the focus for the CEDWW is "to keep an eye on the priority" - student learning, safety and wellbeing.
"They need to be cared for during this time," Mrs O'Carrigan said, with schools balancing the need for socialisation and education with safety requirements.
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