MAGAZINE DISTRICT schools to shift to remote learning.

One Arkansas school district on Friday announced a shift to remote learning, according to the state Department of Education.

In Logan County, Magazine School District announced it would switch to virtual learning for all grades next week, Monday-Friday.

District Superintendent Beth Shumate said three students and three faculty or staff members had tested positive, and that 59 students and 11 adults were quarantined.

“We have been struggling all week with making sure we had enough adults to supervise students,” Shumate said.

Shumate said the district consulted with the Arkansas Department of Education as well as the Arkansas Department of Health and learned that the virus wasn’t spreading within the school district, but infections in the community were affecting the district.

“What’s happening here is family groups are passing it around within the family group, and that’s not anything unusual to just Magazine, it kind of seems like what’s happening everywhere now, especially with Thanksgiving,” she said. “We don’t have staff or students that are getting sick because they are coming to school. It’s truly out in the community and places they go outside of school.”

The district has an enrollment of 520.

In a tweet Friday afternoon, Joe Thompson, chief executive of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, noted that 12 Arkansas school districts that the organization has identified as having high rates of covid-19 spread among district residents would play football games that night, six of them against each other.

According to the center’s analysis, those 12 school districts — Booneville, Crossett, Fordyce, Gurdon, Harrison, McGehee, Prescott, Ozark, Paris, Hoxie, Warren and Wynne — have from 50 to 99 new cases per 10,000 residents for a 14-day period.

Thompson urged game attendees to “be smart” by maintaining distance from others and wearing a mask.

For the 24-hour period between 3 p.m. Thursday and 3 p.m. Friday, the Little Rock School District logged nine positive cases and 61 individuals considered to be in quarantine.

There were two positive cases among staff and two among students at Pulaski Heights Middle, resulting in one staff member and 25 students being quarantined as of Friday, according to the district’s daily update.

There was one new case among staff at Booker Elementary, Fulbright Elementary and Pinnacle View Middle.

There was one new case among students at Parkview High and Pinnacle View Middle’s virtual program.

District Superintendent Beth Shumate said three students and three faculty or staff members had tested positive, and that 59 students and 11 adults were quarantined.