The Pella Community School District has released several updates as it relates to COVID-19 over the past week.

On the district’s Coronavirus database, administration is now reporting the percentage of the students that are in quarantine due to a close contact or for COVID-19 related reasons. The students are participating in off-site learning and are not counted as absent. As of Friday, 7.1% of students district-wide were considered in that category, including 9.8% at LIncoln Elementary, 8% at Madison, and 7.7% at Jefferson Intermediate. There were 13 students out for a positive COVID-19 test, and 60 missing for another reason.

Staff absences due to COVID-19 remain higher than normal, with 3.9% missing classes this week. That includes 6% at Lincoln and 5.9% at Jefferson Intermediate.

Click here for more information about COVID-19 related absences in the Pella Community School District.

In accordance with the new proclamation by Governor Kim Reynolds, all district buildings are closed to outside groups until December 10th. All youth and middle school sports and extracurricular activities are suspended, including all practices, competitions, and performances.

Pella High School events will continue as scheduled, with masks required for all spectators, which are limited to two per participant, which will continue until the end of December as per Little Hawkeye Conference health guidelines. All Pella boys and girls basketball doubleheaders can be heard on 92.1 KRLS or the KRLS2 stream, and all high school activities hosted by the Dutch can be found on the Pella Dutch Live YouTube channel.