August 25, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
The number of positive cases of COVID-19 and those quarantined have more than doubled in the DeKalb County School District over the past week but schools remain open with no plans for shutting down.
Director of Schools Patrick Cripps told WJLE Wednesday morning that school districts have been left to fend for themselves on how to handle the crisis without much guidance from the state. Because of the Governor’s directives there is no mask mandate or remote learning option for schools. Parents may also choose to opt out if any school district should defy the governor’s executive order and require masks anyway.
“We are getting hit from both sides. The Governor has said we can’t have a mask mandate and there are people against masks while others are for them and wondering why we are not in masks. We also have people calling and asking why we are not shut down or why we won’t let them do remote learning. That is not our choice. That was the Governor who said we will not do masks or remote learning,” said Director Cripps.
“When he (Governor) lifted the state of emergency for education several months ago that ended our continuous learning plan that we developed and ran under last year. Under that plan if we had to close schools we could still go remote and provide educational services to our students and it not count against our inclement weather days. When he lifted that it all vanished. We’re fighting this and we don’t have any tools to fight with,” Director Cripps continued.
According to Attendance Supervisor Joey Reeder, a total of 43 positive cases of COVID and 101 quarantines were reported among students district wide last Wednesday, August 18. Those numbers have steadily grown each day and as of Wednesday, August 25 there were 114 positive cases and 301 quarantines.
“We know its bad and may get worse but there has not been a week go by since this started that we haven’t talked to some health provider and we stay in touch with the health department,” said Reeder.
“I’d say about 60-70% of our time right now is dealing with COVID. Our positive cases are rising and we do have a number quarantined and its adding a greater burden on our school nurses. Our poor nurses are trying to keep up with everything they are doing, not only dealing with day to day medical issues they have, but now they are having to deal with the COVID problem as well and its not only students but its our faculty and staff too, There are areas we are concerned about making sure we have classrooms covered as well as the cafeterias because the lack of cafeteria staff could shut a school down in a hurry if you can’t feed the kids. Then how long do you stay closed?. That’s the fight we are in right now,” said Director Cripps.
According to Cripps, the schools are basically relying on parents to report cases of COVID.
“We are not checking temperatures at the door and we don’t get reports from the medical profession saying someone has COVID. We rely on parents to call and tell us. Once we have a positive case we send letters home and a remind app to notify parents that their child is in a classroom where there has been a positive COVID student with possible exposures. We tell the parents that they have the option to quarantine their child and we advise them to please look for signs and symptoms. If the child shows signs, we ask the parents to keep the child home for a few days. Because of the number of students, we are unable to contact trace,” said Director Cripps
Although remote learning is not an option, students at home can keep up with their homework from packets sent home to them or via Google Classroom.
Director Cripps said while remote learning resulted in some learning loss among students last year, the state ought to allow school districts to re-implement it this year should the pandemic get worse.
“Our school board made the push for 1:1 devices a few years ago and we have them now so what better time could there be to use them than if we had to shut down?. We could continue our educational process by doing our curriculum online through those 1:1 devices. Not being able to do that hurts everyone involved,” said Director Cripps.
In the meantime, Cripps said he is trying to get answers from the state.
“I don’t want the community to think we’re just being idle and don’t care and are not trying to do something. I have tried to reach out to our State Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn and State Senator Mark Pody. I have made contact with State Representative Terri Lynn Weaver, who has been receptive. We would like to get our continuous learning plan (remote learning) back in place so that if we do have to close down we don’t have to add days or use our inclement weather days. We all know snow is coming and there is always a chance for flooding,” said Director Cripps.
The state requires districts to complete 180 days of student instruction each school year. If schools were to shut down for a few days, the district would have to use a portion or all of its 13 day allotment of inclement weather days, usually reserved for snow and flooding to make them up. After those 13 days are exhausted, then any further days missed would have to be made up at the end of the school year. That too poses a challenge because the state requires the district to offer summer school right after the regular school year has ended.
Another concern is food shortages.
“We are not getting all the food we’re ordering for our schools. Last week a truck dropped off a shipment at the west school but our staff had to pick up the food and deliver it to the schools because there were no available truck drivers,” added Director Cripps.