Georgia HS That Went Viral For Crowded Hallways Moves to Hybrid Teaching Plan After Reporting 35 COVID Cases

From Seventeen

North Paulding High School went viral last week after reopening schools with little regulation in place to prevent COVID. Now, they have reportedly just announced that they are switching to a "hybrid" schedule that will include both in-person and online learning after reporting 35 cases of coronavirus since opening last Monday.

"This plan we developed will reduce the number of students on campus by half, will reduce hallway congestion, will improve traffic flow during class transitions, and will help mitigate other challenges we have identified since in-person instruction started," the school said in a statement tweeted out by @freeyourmindkid.

In the new plan, the student body is being divided in half based on their last names. On Mondays and Wednesdays, group A through K will have in-person learning, while group L through Z will learn online. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the situation is reversed.

NPHS originally went viral last week when they reopened for the school year despite a continuing spike in coronavirus cases in Georgia and county. Many students shared photos on Twitter of the school's hallways, which were crowded with students, only a few of whom were wearing masks. One of the students who posted a photo on Twitter, Hannah Watters, told Buzzfeed News that a day later she was called into the principal's office and got suspended.

Hannah was told that she violated the student code of conduct. "The policies I broke stated that I used my phone in the hallway without permission, used my phone for social media, and posting pictures of minors without consent," she told Buzzfeed.

Hannah was suspended for five days, along with another student who hasn't been identified. According to Buzzfeed, later that same day, the principal of the school, Gabe Cormona, made an announcement that students who critiqued the school on social media would be punished. Two days, later, though, Hannah tweeted that the school called her to reverse her suspension.

While the Georgia governor has ordered residents to social distance and has "strongly encouraged" them to wear masks, when it came to reopening the schools, the state largely left many of these decisions up to the individual districts. Paulding County School District previously stated that they will "employ social distancing as it is feasible and practical," but "in most cases it will not be possible to enforce social distancing." They have also said that wearing a face mask is a "personal choice" and will not be mandated, though they are strongly encouraged.

Hannah tweeted that she saw about 10% of students wearing masks during the first few days at school. She even kept track of the amount of students wearing masks in each of her classes. According to her, on average 33% of students wore a mask to class, with a few instances where as little as 17% were wearing them.

On Sunday, the superintendent of Paulding County School District sent out a letter saying that nine cases of COVID has been reported at NPHS. Because of that, the school switched to online learning for the first three days this week.

Then, on Wednesday, the school sent a followup note informing everyone of their more permanent plan to switch the hybrid learning.

It's unclear if other schools in Georgia, which have also opened in recent weeks, will follow suit.

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