Marietta will open schools in phases

The Marietta City School System will forge ahead with a proposal that could bring some of its youngest students back to the classroom in less than a month.

The school board on Tuesday unanimously authorized Superintendent Grant Rivera to begin a phased reopening of some classrooms as early as Sept. 8. According to the proposed plan, the district’s phased approached to in-person learning would be extended to its youngest students and students with disabilities first.

In the first phase, students in prekindergarten through second grade and some students with special needs who are in grades kindergarten through five would be in the classroom two days a week, while other students continue with virtual classes.

Those students would be in classrooms with no more than nine of their peers, to allow for social distancing, and would have to wear face coverings and have their temperatures checked daily, Rivera said.

Rivera said the system will take other measures, such as installing partitions on desks, granting frequent outside breaks, adjusting HVAC equipment to provide greater ventilation and allowing staff to deliver meals to classrooms to reduce the amount of time students need to be in the hallways.

“I don’t want crowded hallways,” he said. “I don’t want that picture (to happen) in Marietta.”

Rivera was referring to the photo taken last week at North Paulding High School in which students, most of whom weren’t wearing masks, were walking in a crowded hallway. The school moved to virtual learning this week after six students and three staffers were diagnosed with COVID-19. Paulding’s school officials plan to allow students to return Wednesday, after the buildings have been cleaned.

If COVID-19 case numbers decline in Cobb, subsequent phases would allow the older students to return to their campuses two days a week.

The final phase, which would see the return of all students to the classroom five days a week, would happen only if community transmission is within Cobb & Douglas Public Health guidance of 6 to 100 cases per 100,000 people. The current number of cases per 100,000 people is 357.5, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

As of Monday evening, Cobb County had 14,962 confirmed coronavirus cases, 340 deaths and 1,472 hospitalizations, the state health department reports.

Marietta City Schools, which has just fewer than 8,900 students, began the school year with virtual classes on Aug. 4.

The system’s unveiling of its school reopening plan came a week after the Cobb County School District released its own proposal to do a phased approach back to in-person classes. It also follows news of COVID-19 cases cropping up at schools in Cherokee and Paulding counties, which both opened for virtual and in-person classes last week without a mandate for students to wear masks.

The Cherokee County School District on Tuesday had more than 900 students and staff quarantined. It closed Etowah High School until Aug. 31 after the number of positive cases there rose to 14. Results for another 15 students were pending.

The school drew national attention last week after scores of students without masks were pictured shoulder to shoulder in a group photo on the first day of the fall semester.