84 St. Joseph High School students under quarantine

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. -- St. Joseph High School is reporting 84 students in quarantine after contact tracing this week of nine COVID-positive students.

While their COVID dashboard currently only lists 69, Interim Superintendent Kelly Gaideski said that's because more students were added to quarantine Friday afternoon, after its last update.

Through their case investigation, district officials say they are confident the transmission did not start within the building. One student telling ABC57 the nine positive cases stem from a gathering outside of school.

But, these numbers are still consistent with a trend being seen at various Berrien County districts.

“Area schools have just seen this uptick, there is a spike in our county, so we’re watching it for sure,” said Gaideski.

While 84 may seem like a high number, Gaideski said it’s all relative when you consider the school district has a student body of nearly 3,000.

“It’s not as high of a percentage as we’ve had before, as most districts did right before they sent us to remote back in the fall,” said Gaideski.

ABC57 took a look at the COVID dashboards for neighboring districts. Lakeshore shows 74 students out at their middle school, while Bridgman has 41 students and staff in quarantine.

The Berrien County Health Department was not available for comment Sunday on this upward trend of cases at schools.