FCS mostly back to classrooms
♦ Rome’s school system reports increased quarantines at Rome High, Rome Middle and East Central.
In a work session of the Floyd County School Board on Friday morning, members announced plans to reopen all schools except Coosa High School, Coosa Middle School and Pepperell Primary School.
Those three schools will remain closed for a week while delivering remote instruction to students and return to classroom instruction Aug. 31. Face coverings will be distributed to all staff and students Monday, systemwide.
The board announced they will continue monitoring the situations at all open schools. Also at the meeting, interim Superintendent Glenn White said Thursday’s decision to shift to remote learning was his decision and he accepted full responsibility.
The school system received a contribution from Floyd Medical Center to purchase 20,000 face coverings. Students will also be required to wear coverings on a bus going to and from school.
White and school board Chairman Tony Daniel both indicated that a color-coded chart the school system had developed to monitor the situation was developed with positive testing in mind and did not consider the potential impact of mass quarantining.
At the end of the day Thursday, the county schools had 480 students in quarantine status along with 34 teachers and staff. The system has only six students and three staff members who have actually tested positive for the coronavirus.
“No one else had anything to do with the decision (to shut down) so the criticism, which I deserve, and any other comments that need to be made need to be made to me,” White said. “It was the wrong decision and I wish I had not made that. I owe an apology to our parents and students of the Floyd County school system and to our staff members across this county.”
“We are a team, we’ll get through this,” Daniel said. Of the 480 students in quarantine, almost held of them, 237 are at Coosa High School.
The critical infrastructure issue was discussed at length by the board along with District Public Health Director Dr. Gary Voccio and attorney Stewart Duggan.
Board member Jay Shell said he’s seen first-hand how hard the staff at the Coosa schools have been working to make sure the classrooms and buildings are clean and sanitized.
Rome City Schools
As the Rome school system closed out its first week of instruction no schools have yet to be shut down and one third grade class at East Central Elementary School has been collectively quarantined.
RCS Superintendent Lou Byars said he’s been proud of the way students and staff have responded to a mask mandate from the start of school which he credits with keeping problems to a minimum thus far.
“We’re not to a point where we need to close any schools,” Byars said. The system’s reporting method is on their website and reports quarantines and cases from the day prior. For instance, on Friday the school reported 118 new quarantines, the majority of which were at East Central, Rome Middle and Rome High.
In that same period of time there were three new positive COVID-19 cases, 2 students and one staff member. The staff member was at East
Central and the students were at West Central Elementary and Rome Middle.
When a student or teacher or anyone in the classroom tests positive and has been at school within the past 48 hours they will quarantine the entire class, Byars said. In that instance the entire class will switch to virtual learning as a class, with the same teacher.
“At the elementary school you have more interaction but our principals are doing great and working very hard to limit the contacts,” Byars said.
Byars said that he is constantly reminding staff to be prepared for when situations arise because the is aware of the likelihood issues could arise.