BEATRICE – As schools, colleges and universities fight the presence of the coronavirus, some staff members at Southeast Community College are going above and beyond the call of duty….as trained case managers.


"I can't tell you how impressed I've been with our faculty, our students and staff. They have worked so hard, and they're using laptops and doing things they've never done before with Zoom. It's just been amazing...there's no complaining...everybody's just worked together and that's been extremely impressive."


SCC President Dr. Paul Illich told the school’s board, meeting in-person and virtually on Tuesday, “we have a lot of exhausted people”. The college has trained over 20 staff members to serve as case managers….employees who know what to do in contact tracing management.


"We pivot at the individual level. We purchased laptops for every full-time faculty with high quality microphones and cameras so that, if a student needs to quarantine, they can record the class through Zoom and the student can continue to take classes. We have that happening on a regular basis."


There have been 29 Covid-19 positive tests at the college in the past fourteen days and SCC has felt the impact of the virus at all three of its campuses in Lincoln, Beatrice and Milford.


Lincoln Campus Director Bev Cummins says the staff members who are doubling as case managers have taken a Johns Hopkins training course on contact tracing. "We meet weekly. We discuss our cases...and questions or concerns anyone came across. No two cases are alike, and so oftentimes we'll talk with one another and say, what would you do in this situation. We're constantly kind of scanning for those kind of situations, clusters, trends. That helps us to bring any questions or concerns to the policy exec team, to make any changes in our protocols or procedures."


Staff members document everything…work with individuals testing positive as to what they should do, inform instructors about when the student can come back and inform other students to self-monitor…also following up with the student who is isolating.


"It takes a lot of people to do this, and it's very detailed...a great number of people have been a part of it. What's also amazing is the people that are doing this case management for us are doing it on top of their otherwise busy roles at the college....whether they're deans, associate deans, directors...it's been pretty impressive with everybody stepping up to the plate."


Southeast works with officials of three health districts across the college’s fifteen-county service area. Lincoln Campus student representative Isabelle Kendle says students are adjusting during the pandemic, with social distancing and mask wearing. She says there has been a drop in student activity participation, with fewer students staying on campus.