FORT LUPTON, Colo. (KDVR) – Many local parents are on edge when it comes to their children going back to school after two students at Fort Lupton High School tested positive for COVID-19.

The students were in their first week of in-person learning and in different cohorts.

The high school will be closed for in-person learning for the next two weeks.

“I think we’re all hopeful we could manage this and lead through this,” said Weld Re-8 Superintendent Alan Kaylor. “I think it’s just another lesson in the COVID pandemic – that as much as we prepare, as much as we take precautions, we can’t control the outcomes.”

Kaylor and the school followed all the public health guidelines. They divided students into cohorts, distanced them and checked their temperatures. Still, it wasn’t enough to keep the coronavirus out of the classroom.

“Unfortunately, I think this is just the environment that we’re going to have live in,” said Dr. Glen Mays, the chair and a professor in the Department of Health Systems, Management and Policy at the Colorado School of Public Health.

Mays said as more and larger schools open, it would not be surprising to see more students test positive for COVID-19. That would force their cohorts to quarantine and learn virtually.

“The larger districts face a number of challenges,” Mays said, speaking about Douglas County and Cherry Creek schools. “They work against the law of large numbers. You have larger groups, larger schools…the likelihood of having positive cases is definitely there.”

That said, Colorado is in a better position to open schools than some other states.

For example, thousands of students are quarantined in Georgia after the coronavirus spread inside a number of high schools recently.

“Colorado is in a relatively advantageous position for opening up,” Mays said. “We’ve done a good job of social distancing. We’ve got the virus spread down to a low level.”