SAUK RAPIDS -- Sauk Rapids-Rice Superintendent Brad Bergstrom says one of the biggest developments to come out of the governor's relaxed COVID-19 restrictions announced last Friday is that more people will be able to attend events at the schools starting on April 1st.

He says the district has been working on tentative plans for big events like prom and graduation for a while now, which continue to move forward.

We're continuing to move ahead with the possibility of a prom event, we're looking at what might be some of our options for what graduation could and should look like.  I think that even under the best of circumstances, I don't think it's going to look exactly the same as what we saw pre-COVID.

Health officials say teenagers are behind a slight increase in coronavirus activity in Minnesota. The state Department of Health reported 6,818 additional COVID-19 cases in the week ending Tuesday. About 10% involved teenagers 15 to 19 years old.

Bergstrom says his district has seen an uptick in the number of COVID-related absences.

Yes, yes we have. Have we seen an uptick in the number of adults who have to quarantine? Yes, but as the vaccination process continues, we're already seeing examples of adults who don't have to quarantine because they are two weeks beyond that second shot.

Bergstrom says the increase in the number of cases was expected and not anything that is alarming to him. He says they are not seeing spread happening in the buildings and that it is coming from the community.

Sauk Rapids-Rice school district is now in week seven of being back to full-time in-person learning for pre-K through 12th grade.

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