Collierville school officials said Tuesday that 241 students are in quarantine as the district holds its second week of classes.

The district’s dashboard states 72 students have had COVID-19 since Aug. 9, the first day of school. Collierville High has had 21 cases, and 12 of those are active.

Suburban school districts update mask plans after governor’s order

Meanwhile, several suburban districts released figures Tuesday of students “opting out” of wearing masks, a day after Gov. Bill Lee issued an executive order saying parents could choose if their children wear masks in classrooms or at school functions.

Every school in the Collierville district has had positive cases, but the most students who contracted the virus were at Collierville High. Collierville Middle School has seen 15 cases since Aug. 9, and West Collierville Middle School has had 10.

Students, identified as close contacts, are asked to quarantine for 10 days. Collierville has developed a digital learning plan for children in quarantine. The board will review a policy next week, but Superintendent Gary Lilly told the board that staff would like to practice the policy for individual students quarantined. The policy will also count students as present, if passed. Currently students quarantined are given an excused absence.

“If we have an entire school closed down for COVID reasons, we are not allowed to shift to all remote like last year,” Lilly said, due to new state guidelines.

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Last year, districts submitted continuous learning plans, a guide for how they planned to educate students during the pandemic. However, the state did not allow those options for the 2021-22 school year.

Five employees have COVID-19, although there are no current employees with the virus at Schilling Farms, Tara Oaks, West Collierville Middle School or Collierville High School. The other five schools each have one employee with the virus. Seven employees total have been affected since the start of school.

Many of the cases were identified before Lee’s executive order was announced Monday. The Shelby County Health Department said it would follow the governor’s order.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 972 of more than 8,700 students in the district were opting out of wearing masks.

Germantown Municipal School District and Arlington Community Schools reported a larger percentage of students opting out at 14.6% and 12%, respectively.

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Lakeland School System saw slightly more than 10% of students opt out. Bartlett saw just 1.8% of students choose not to wear masks, and only about 1.5% of students in Millington opted out of masking.