Floyd County Schools reverses remote learning decision despite COVID-19 outbreak

Hundreds of students and faculty were originally forced to quarantine

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In less than a day, Floyd County Schools has reversed its decision to end in-person class instruction, so students and faculty will return Monday despite there being 10 positive coronavirus cases reported at various schools.

In a work session of the Floyd County School Board on Friday morning, members announced plans to reopen all system schools except Coosa High, Coosa Middle and Pepperell Primary starting Monday.

Classes for the school system, which serves about 10,000 students, just began two days ago. In that time, the school system had accumulated 10 positive coronavirus cases, according to Northwest Georgia News. Due to those instances, more than 350 staff and students were asked to quarantine Thursday. However, Trump has issued new guidelines classifying teachers as critical infrastructure workers, which would allow them to continue to teach in the classroom after being exposed the virus, according to a Channel 2 News report.

Coosa High School was one of the first schools to report positive COVID-19 results, leading to 107 students and school employees isolating at home after being exposed, according to Coosa Valley News. Over the weekend, dozens of staff and pupils at Coosa Middle and Pepperell Primary schools were forced to quarantine due to an unspecified number of positive cases. All three of those schools, Coosa High, Coosa Middle and Pepperell Primary, will remain closed until Sept. 8. Currently, 480 students systemwide 34 teachers and staff are now quarantined. 

Other schools have made decisions to close some schools in light of coronavirus cases increasing. Cherokee County School District has not decided to end in-person class instruction, but more than 1,000 students and staffers have been quarantined in the second week of school due to there being 80 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Three Cherokee County high schools have changed to online learning until Aug. 31, after several reported coronavirus cases.

Several other school systems, including those in Douglas and Cobb County, are beginning the school year virtually, but will open the halls of education to students and staff over the next couple of weeks.

Floyd County will begin remote learning programs for the weeks beginning on August 24 and August 31.