As coronavirus cases continue to increase around the state as well as here in Athens-Clarke County and the surrounding area. As a result, the Clarke County School District is joining other in the area in having some schools go virtual, at least briefly. Dr. Jillian Whatley is Executive Director of student services for the district.
“We have to look at the numbers within our community spread, but then also we wanted to make sure that our mitigation efforts were clear and the expectations were clear in schools,” according to Whatley.
She explains why Clarke high schools are going virtual next week.
“So we’re going in next week and we’re doing deep cleaning and we’re also going to retrain school-based teams on those COVID response teams and what their duties and responsibilities were.”
There’s another major reason for the timing of the virtual break.
“Also, it’s after Labor Day and we know that we need to give people an opportunity to kind of come off the holiday and hopefully be mindful of their symptoms before they come to school.”
Parents received the notice Wednesday. According to the district’s COVID-19Ddashboard as of Thursday afternoon, there were 260 confirmed COVID cases within the school district in the past two weeks, with approximately 6% of students and staff currently in quarantine
You can hear more about the Clarke County School District’s efforts from Dr. Whatley on this week’s edition of Athens News Matters.
