State health department falsely reports COVID-19 outbreak at Monument school

MONUMENT, Colo. (KRDO) — There is no COVID-19 outbreak at Monument Academy, despite a Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment report mistakenly saying so Wednesday.

“We received information on an outbreak and because of a miscommunication, we identified the wrong school,” a spokesperson for CDPHE said. “It was human error, and we apologize for the confusion.”

Monument Academy addressed the error with its students and parents as quickly as it could confirm the false report with El Paso County Public Health Thursday morning.

"I have a 10-month-old at home," Monument Academy parent Haley Wheeler said. "So when they were like, yeah there's an outbreak, I was freaking out. And then they sent an email saying everything's okay and I was instantly relieved. I felt it in my whole body."

Parents in the school pickup line were pleased with Monument Academy’s quick communication.

"I was very impressed with their response," Sarah Kershaw said.

Christianna Herrera is the chief operations officer for Monument Academy. She was equally as shocked by the mistake.

"My first thought was, it can't be right. There's an obvious mistake. Not only because we don't have any reports of that, but also because El Paso County Public Health is very cooperative with us."

Monument Academy just started school on Monday. Herrera hopes to keep the coronavirus off campus, but says if someone at school is infected, it won't be a secret.

"We would absolutely report it immediately," Herrera said. "It is not in anyone's interest to not react quickly or not allow our parents this information."