The omicron variant has hit Winona hard and Cotter has had to deal with its effects. One of  the moves has been to require masks in the buildings.

AnnMarie DeMarais is the Executive Assistant to the President, Board of Directors, and Secretary at Cotter Schools. For the past two school years she has served as the Covid coordinator across the three campus’s, Cotter High School and Junior High School, St. Stans, and St. Mary’s.

Her job is to help with the policies and protocols, communicate with families when they call or report a positive case or close contact exposures and is in charge of the isolation, quarantine, and when to return to school. At the start of the 2021 school year, there had been 34 positive cases in the system. The 2021-2022 school year has already made it to 80 positive cases and 35 of them have been after Christmas break..

“My biggest challenge this year is being responsive to all of the families the same day, when there are so many people to get back to all at once,”  DeMarais said.

As of January 10, 2022, Cotter began to mandate masking again because of the rising cases in the Winona area. At the end of January, Cotter re-evaluated this decisionad decided to keep the mandate for three additional weeks, as Winona County and the Cotter school system were still seeing a large number of cases.

Instead of isolating for 10 days, as was the case positive cases now quarantine for 5 days and then wearing a mask after their return. This helps the student be able to get back as soon as possible. Everyone is hoping the situation will get better with the mask mandates, so that we can move forward.

“Hopefully we can eventually operate without masks, but I really encourage everyone to get vaccinated when eligible so that we can get back to normal,” DeMarais added.

Hailey Biesanz had a rough experience with Covid 19. She was the only person in her family who got it the first time, she was stuck in her room for 10 days. Since she is at “high risk” from underlying symptoms, she had a strong reaction, and was unable to leave bed for a few days.

Her biggest challenge was the timing of it. She states “The day I tested positive, I was supposed to have my senior pictures, I was going to the Dells in 4 days, and school started in a week. I in fact missed my first day of senior year, which really sucked.” She had many people FaceTiming her or dropping stuff off at her house to make her feel better and time to go by. She did whatever she could to fill time and because she was going insane sitting in her room.

Ryan Hesch did not have as tough an experience with Covid 19 when he tested positive. It only lasted a week and the symptoms weren’t horrible, it was just a strong cold. For the long run, he did not have any out of the ordinary affects from it.

“As for the challenges staying at home again for 10 days straight isn’t easy and definitely tested my patience and brought back memories of being stuck home last year during the pandemic. For the few days it’s alright as you can relax and decompress, but as you get near the end or the last 4 days it can get annoying and you just want to get out finally,”Hesch said.

Jodi Werner, Cotter’s main office receptionist and secretary, has been at Cotter for 25 years. Covid has changed her job as well.  The pandemic has increased the number of kids out of school and the time it takes for her to deal with attendance because so many people are absent.

“It has been difficult for me to wear a mask because it makes me tired, but knowing it will keep others and myself safe, I think it is a good thing that they are mandating it now.”

Outside of school she is not able to see her family as much because of the rising cases, she is vaccinated but it makes her and her family more careful.

Cotter will be re-evaluating the mask mandate later in February, but the main goa