LPS reports 446 COVID cases in three days, nearing record numbers

According to the district's Safe Return Dashboard, 417 students have tested positive and 29 staff members have tested positive.

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Wednesday morning, Lincoln Public Schools reported 446 students and faculty members have tested positive for COVID-19 since Sunday.

According to the district’s Safe Return Dashboard, 417 students and 29 staff members have tested positive. These numbers don’t take into account everyone who’s been sidelined due to COVID-19 exposure.

“We had 209 staff members in quarantine and isolation and 1,182 students,” says Liz Standish with LPS. “So this does impact our ability to operate our schools.”

Last week LPS broke the single-week record for cases, with 573 total cases in a shortened week after students returned from the holiday break.

At last night’s LPS meeting a mother of four special needs students spoke out about how the staffing shortage due to COVID-19 is taking a toll on special needs students within the school district.

“I don’t know that you really have a handle on how extreme the circumstances are in our schools and I hope that hearing this will help you get a sense of the urgency in helping our existing staff and students,” says Jillian Carter, who has four special needs students within the district. “I know kids that have regressed and stagnated because it’s all the staff can do to keep them safe and accounted for, let alone educate them or help them meet their IEP goals.”

Carter says there have also been several incidents with special needs students due to the lack of paraprofessional staff in the district.

“I know a girl with cerebral palsy who left her class without a para there to escort her because the para didn’t show up right away and she didn’t want to be late to her next class, she fell down the stairs and really injured herself and had to go to the ER,” says Carter.