Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have risen exponentially at Frank W. Begley Public School in Windsor; making it the largest school outbreak in the province.
The Greater Essex County District School Board sent home more than 430 students and staff members from the school at 1093 Assumption St. Tuesday after the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit declared an outbreak.
Three cases of COVID-19 triggered the school's closure, but the health unit has now identified 26 cases as of Sunday afternoon.
"At first you wonder, why three? Then it shows how quickly this virus does spread as more test results come in," says Superintendent of Student Wellbeing Sharon Pyke.
She says students will begin learning from home while they self-isolate for 14-days on Monday morning.
"We've made sure that the number of students that require devices have them and we've had to make sure the staff had what they needed in order to begin their program online," she says.
Pyke says the board will take what it's learned to improve prevention and response procedures.
"We did learn lots as we were planning and certainly are going to be adjusting our procedures to make it seamless if we're going to be using this in the future," she added.
Pyke thanked Windsor Regional Hospital for staging five clinics for families and students to make it as easy as possible to get tested.
A new case of COVID-19 was also posted to the board's website Saturday at Sandwich West Public School in LaSalle.
The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board is still dealing with an outbreak at Windsor's W.J. Langlois Catholic Elementary School that caused staff and students to be sent home on Friday.
Pyke expects to compare notes with the catholic board at the next meeting with the health unit.