Rawlins High School officials canceled all of the school’s homecoming-related activities late last week due to a COVID “situation” at the school.
School officials announced the cancellation of all homecoming activities on Thursday afternoon on social media, one day before the football game, due to the unavailability of players who were either sick with COVID or quarantined due to exposure.
This meant that the team had to forfeit its game to Douglas High School, and the homecoming parade and dance were canceled.
The high school administration intended to reschedule some of the activities at some point in the future.
In an interview with radio station Bigfoot99, high school principal Marnie Garner would not call the reason for the homecoming cancellation an “outbreak” and declined to say how school administrators found out about the COVID “situation” among the football players.
Garner told host Cali O’Hare that despite the cancellation, Rawlins High students were taking their lack of homecoming in stride and understood that due to the pandemic, some things were out of people’s control.
She added that the high school has seen a decrease in active COVID cases, with the exception of the situation with the football team.
The football game against Lander slated for later this week is still under question, as it was unclear if enough football players would be out of quarantine in time to play.
As of Friday, Carbon County had 69 active cases. Just under 37% of the county is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Carbon County School District No. 1 does not have a mask mandate in place, although district superintendent Mike Hamel warned of this possibility at the beginning of the school year. He also urged parents to make sure their children were frequently using hand sanitizer and to encourage their children to wear a mask.
“I want parents to have a little lead time that should our numbers continue to rise we will be reinstituting a mask requirement for all students and staff,” he wrote. “We would also look at reinstituting other protocols such as limiting access to facilities for outside agencies and parents, requiring masks at events and limiting fans at events. We are hopeful to keep in-person instruction available to everyone but we will be making plans to transition to a virtual platform should such a step become necessary.”
Hamel also encouraged parents to talk with their health care providers about the parents or their children getting one of the COVID vaccines, if they are eligible.
