EAST PROVIDENCE — Two East Providence High School students tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days, the first pupils in the district to do so, Superintendent Kathryn Crowley announced Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 23.

The students, however, are distance learners and have not entered the building to date.

They are quarantining and under the oversight of the Rhode Island Department of Health, which has begun the process of contract tracing those with whom the students were in close proximity.

The superintendent added the RIDOH alerted  EPHS nurse Amanda Shattuck of the positive tests, which were done earlier this week after the students took ill and showed symptoms of the virus.

Last week, two student teachers working in the district, later announced as attending Providence College, tested positive for the virus, forcing some 20 elementary students and staff to enter quarantine and take up distance learning.

The PC campus and the surrounding Elmhurst neighborhood have become a coronavirus hot spot in recent days with some 165 students testing positive.  The PC student teachers potentially exposed pupils and personnel at the Whiteknact School.