Officials with Ottawa County dismiss school's religious defense re: COVID

Libertas School

by: WOODTV.com staff

PHOTO: An empty Libertas Christian School on Oct. 23, 2020.

BLENDON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Court filings released Tuesday show the Ottawa County Department of Public Health and Libertas Christian School disagree about when a teacher developed COVID-19 symptoms and therefore when that person may have been contagious.

Officials from the Ottawa County health department last week shut down the school near Hudsonville, arguing it wasn’t implementing appropriate coronavirus mitigation practices and that it wasn’t giving information needed to conduct contact tracing after two teachers contracted the virus. The school had already filed a federal lawsuit against the county and state health officials over coronavirus mandates.

Health department officials say one of the teachers infected was in the classroom the same day symptoms appeared. The school disputes that, saying symptoms weren’t visible until two days later and the teacher therefore wasn’t contagious when in the classroom.

Ottawa County authorities are making the claim that despite Libertas’ arguments to the contrary, it’s a school, not a place of worship and that it should therefore be following the same rules as every public and private school in the region.

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