MADISON, Ala. — Fourteen students and one employee in Madison City Schools have tested positive for COVID-19 during the district’s first week back at school.

The district also said 170 people across seven schools were quarantined because of contact with confirmed or potential cases of the disease.

The majority of those cases and quarantines were at Bob Jones High School, where nine football players tested positive.

120 students and 10 teachers at Bob Jones were in quarantine, Superintendent Ed Nichols said in a message Friday.

In addition to the Bob Jones cases, two James Clemens High School students tested positive. Columbia and Rainbow elementary schools each had one student, and Liberty Middle School had one student and one teacher test positive.

Madison City Schools has delayed the start of high school students’ return to school because of the number of teachers quarantined, Nichols said.

“I want to make sure all of you know that this sudden spike in the BJHS football team is not because the coaching staff did not follow our procedures,” he wrote in the message. “All of our coaches in the district have done a great job since the summer of adhering to the AHSAA and Madison City guidelines.”

The Alabama Department of Public Health is performing contact tracing on all of the cases in the district, according to Nichols.