Riverside will work to notify the community but must protect the confidentiality of their students and staff. Schools with 5 or few cases we will not provide a specific count, but will only confirm there are cases within the school population.
Each week the district will provide a Community Update.
Riverside COVID-19 Information Page
More information on COVID-19 can be found at www.riversideschools.org and then click on “Riverside COVID-19 Information Page” at the top of the page.
Pottawattamie County Public Health and Riverside Community School District can confirm:
No new student positive COVID-19 cases have been reported this week. Less than Five (5) students have been confirmed positive for COVID-19 since the start of the school year.
New positive staff cases were reported this week-More than than Five (5) total staff have been confirmed positive since the start of school-Only the new cases-less than 5 are not in school.
There were additional students and staff this week placed in quarantine due to primary exposure or testing positive in the community. We have had a total of one hundred and three (122) students or staff since the beginning of the year that have been out and most have returned to school, Currently, twenty-four (24) are not in school. Many are set to return next week.
No students or staff members with major symptoms or a Positive COVID-19 diagnosis are attending school or will be allowed to attend school or participate in activities.
We are implementing strict mitigation protocols.
We have no evidence of school, or activities spread of COVID-19 all cases have been attributed to been community spread. Spread throughout the community is increasing and could result in impacting the school. Please consider strict mitigation techniques while outside of school
All students who tested positive have completed quarantine, been cleared by Public Health to return to school and are asymptomatic. Most of the staff members who tested positive have also completed quarantine and have returned to school.
As of today (11-13-2020), Pottawattamie County is 21.7% positive-14 day average.
You can access this information at:
Positive Analysis - Public School District Summary
**We will continue to provide Traditional Face to Face/Hybrid Instruction with the options for parents to request approval for Remote Learning.
**Across the state we are seeing an increase in the number of waiver requests to provide primarily remote instruction. Here are some important reminders about remote instruction and the waiver process:
**Schools can immediately transition to remote learning for up to 48 hours while waiting for a waiver decision.
**Schools can also move one or more grade levels or sections of a building to remote instruction without State approval.
**Schools can make these local decisions based on local conditions and only need to request a waiver if they feel that closing an entire building or the district is the right decision for their community.
**Schools do not have to wait until they reach both student absenteeism of 10% and a county positivity rate above 15% to apply for a waiver. These guidelines are to assist districts when they are determining when they might want to use remote instruction, but they are only guidelines.
**The county positivity rate is just one factor that school districts and nonpublic schools should take into account, and it may not be indicative of the positivity rate among their students and staff.
**If a district or school chooses to use primarily remote instruction they are required to temporarily cease in-person extracurricular activities for the duration of the period requested.
**Please be aware that if positive cases do start to increase in school and the result is increased student and staff absenteeism we will keep our Hybrid model in Elementary but we can move to a hybrid model in the Middle/High School. Remote Learning for the entire district will only go into effect if a waiver is submitted and approved by the state. We will only apply for a waiver if due to student and staff absence we can not facilitate face to face instruction.
The following documents will help answer some of the questions you may have about how decisions are made related to quarantine and keeping schools open.