COVID outbreak has delayed Montesano football start

A potential outbreak of COVID-19 within the Montesano High School football team has caused the start of their season to be delayed.

In a letter sent to parents/guardians on Thursday and forwarded to KXRO, Superintendent Dan Winter said that Grays Harbor Public Health alerted the school district of the possible outbreak of two or more students or staff members involved with the team testing positive for COVID-19. 

Due to HIPAA laws, the specifics of the outbreak have not been released.

Because of the positive cases, Montesano School District has paused football practice and events for up to fourteen days to allow time for public health officials to perform contact tracing.

According to Winter, athletes and coaches will be asked to verify vaccination status to determine close contacts of those cases. Unvaccinated contacts will be asked to quarantine and vaccinated contacts will be asked to test to confirm negative results.

On the Montesano High School calendar, it shows that this change will impact both the Football Jamboree and a scheduled game at North Kitsap to start the season.

“We understand this news can be unsettling and that you will have many questions”, said Winter, adding that “ Our priority is to protect the health and safety of our students, including your child.”

The school district will re-evaluate the pause on Monday, August 30 to determine a date that events can be resumed.