Orange Southwest schools go remote; contact tracers face defiance

ORANGE, Vt. (WCAX) - All schools in the Orange Southwest School District will be fully remote until further notice.

That includes students and families in Randolph, Braintree, and Brookfield, Vermont. The board voted to keep schools in remote session following the Thanksgiving break until it’s deemed safe for students to return.

According to school leaders, they are still waiting to hear about 20 tests, but say closing the district after at least eight positive cases was appropriate. They also say about one-third of the families contact tracers spoke with didn’t care and very clearly expressed their resistance to quarantine or explicitly said they wouldn’t be following the rules.

Orange County has seen 121 cases within the past two weeks.

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