Many families with students attending Fireside School in Cochrane were contacted by both phone and email late last night (Thursday, April 29) and advised to keep their kids at home, until further notice.

School Principal, Dave Banderk and  Assistant Principal, Jackie Root were busy notifying more than half of the school, after receiving notice that "an individual from Fireside School has tested positive for COVID-19."

The email states that the school is "working closely with Alberta Health Services (AHS) to ensure the necessary precautions are taken to protect students and staff."

It's believed that a large portion of the school population is impacted by this positive case and both Banderk and Root say that "contact tracing will take longer than usual."

Rather than listing the classes believed to be affected, the letter instead lists the classes who are not impacted, and still able to attend school in person.

In-person learning will continue for all Kindergarten classes, 2-3 (Mrs. O'Neal), 3-1 (Ms. Larsen), 3-4 (Mr. Shaw), and 7-2 (Mrs. Mejia).

All other classes have been advised to stay at home until thorough contact tracing has been completed, and AHS determines which students need to complete a 14-day quarantine.

For privacy reasons, no further information will be provided about the affected individual.

Fireside School will provide families with more information later today.