The Chase Street Elementary School stands empty on Jan 5. After a brief period of in-person instruction for pre-K-8 schools, Clarke County School District K-12 schools will now remain in online-only instruction indefinitely. “As a cabinet, we reviewed this (COVID-19) information, and as the (CCSD Board of Education) knows, we were anticipating returning for in-person instruction on Jan. 19. We will postpone that return for in-person instruction,” CCSD Chief Academic Officer Brannon Gaskins said at a Jan. 7 BOE work session. Photo by Elena Webber
Clarke County School District Superintendent Xernona Thomas announced that the CCSD will remain in an online learning environment for the foreseeable future at a CCSD Board of Education work session on Jan. 7.
“I had been asked when we had our agenda-setting meeting by Dr. (LaKeisha) Gantt if we could provide a COVID update, I shared a brief overview with you all today and then we shared with principals and staff and had planned to share this evening with the community,” Thomas said at the session.
However, the Jan. 7 CCSD letter mentioned by Thomas at the Jan. 7 BOE work session states that all students will remain in online instruction past Jan. 19.
“The district initially planned to return to in-person learning for pre-K-8th grade students on Tuesday, Jan 19. However, the district will postpone returning to in-person classroom instruction for all students, K-12,” the letter stated. “We did consider bringing back specialized groups (e.g., special education adaptive students, students with severe and profound disabilities) due to their small cases. However, in the interest of health and safety, it was decided also to postpone in-person instruction for these students.”
“The district will postpone returning to in-person classroom instruction for all students, K-12.”
— Jan. 7 CCSD letter
The Jan. 7 letter cites various concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason schools will remain online.
The COVID-19 indicators used by CCSD are displayed. All indicators except for the number of mitigation strategies implemented by CCSD are in the red zone, indicating severe concern. The 14-day percent of positive COVID-19 tests is 17.2%. The 7-day percent change in new cases per 100,000 people is 74.6%, indicating that COVID-19 has spread rapidly over the past week. The percent of occupied intensive care unit beds is 121.4%, which indicates that the ICU is above capacity and has brought in extra beds to care for all patients.
At the Jan. 7 BOE meeting, CCSD Executive Director of Student Support Services Jillian Whatley indicated that the primary concern was COVID-19 indicators in the greater community of Athens-Clarke County and other surrounding counties.
“(CCSD is) doing what we need to do, but when we look at the community around us there is so much going on in terms of our hospital bed use, percentage of beds occupied by COVID patients, those numbers are significantly higher and definitely indicate that we are not in a good place within the community,” Whatley said at the session.
CCSD Chief Academic Officer Brannon Gaskins stated at the Jan. 7 BOE work session that returning specialized student groups to in-person instruction will be the first priority.
“One of the first things that we want to consider in a return is our specialized programs, such as our students who have severe or profound disabilities, as well as our special education students and our adaptive programs,” Gaskins said at the session. “Those class sizes are smaller, so we can better socially distance, we can mitigate the spread of the virus in those classrooms. So instead of waiting until we can return all of our students, we are thinking about how we can return our specialized groups as appropriate.”
“As we return our specialized groups we are also planning on how we can return our pre-K-8th grade students and our high school students as soon as possible. Our desire is to return our high school students at the same time as our pre-K through eighth students,”
— Brannon Gaskins,
CCSD Chief Academic Officer
Gaskins stated that the district hopes to return pre-K-12 students to in-person instruction simultaneously.
“We provided an option for pre-K-8th grade for in-person instruction, our other commitment is to include high school in that return. So as we return our specialized groups we are also planning on how we can return our pre-K-8th grade students and our high school students as soon as possible. Our desire is to return our high school students at the same time as our pre-K-8 students,” Gaskins said at the session.
Gaskins also noted that the CCSD is exploring alternative instructional models which would allow a mix of in-person and online instruction.
“Our instructional model prior to the winter break was that we return students for a full five days of instruction. We are thinking and planning on how we may be able to do that on a hybrid return,” Gaskins said at the session. “If the numbers continue to persist and we don’t feel comfortable returning students to five days of full instruction, we are considering how we may be able to return them once or twice a week so students do have an option to be in front of their teacher in their school buildings once or twice during the school week.”
The Jan. 7 letter indicates that parents will be able to change their preferred instruction model in the event that in-person instruction becomes available.
“We are aware that we asked parents to make their instructional decision by Jan. 6. We will provide options for parents to make changes to their decisions based on additional information and data,” the letter stated.
“A noticeable decline in COVID positive results in the first metric we will consider when beginning the phase-in to in-person instruction.”
— Jan. 7 CCSD letter
The letter does not contain a date for return to in-person learning, but states that an additional update will be provided on Jan. 19.
“We will continue to monitor COVID data in our region and consider plans to return students safely. Although (CCSD) cannot provide a specific date for a return at this time, we will update our community the week of Jan. 19,” the letter stated. “A noticeable decline in COVID positive results in the first metric we will consider when beginning the phase-in to in-person instruction.”
