Schools announce closures or virtual days to address illness during COVID-19 surge

Lasherica Thornton, Jackson Sun
·3 min read

With another spike in COVID cases and hospitalizations and the presence of the omicron variant, some West Tennessee school systems have closed over the past month, whether that be some schools moving to remote learning under a waiver or the district closing for a few days.

By September, Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn offered a waiver to Gov. Bill Lee’s rule that schools could not do remote learning. The waiver allows classes or schools to temporarily pivot to remote learning if the need is documented.

School districts as a whole cannot use the waiver but have tools, such as stockpile days, to close.

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The following have announced Thursday and Friday closures, Friday closures or remote learning days:

Thursday, Friday closures

  • Hollow Rock-Bruceton Special School District

  • McNairy County Schools

  • West Carroll Special School District.

Bruceton students will return Monday on an A/B schedule for two weeks, with the A and B groups each attending class two days a week but for a longer block of time, then attending the fifth day for a shorter time.

McNairy County Schools was closed on Monday and Tuesday because of weather conditions and illness, but a continued high number of illness among students and staff caused them to close Thursday and Friday as well.

West Carroll Special School District was granted a remote learning waiver for all of its three schools, allowing it to close the district, according to the Tennessean. On the district's Facebook post announcing the closures, it didn't say the days would be for remote learning.

Friday closures

  • Chester County Schools

  • East Side Elementary in Haywood County Schools

  • Hardin County Schools

  • Henderson County Schools

  • Lexington City Schools

  • Milan Special School D

Hardin County Schools announced Thursday morning that there wouldn't be school Thursday due to overnight flooding and wouldn't be school on Friday because of the number of teachers and staff absent due to sickness.

Remote learning

Jackson-Madison County School System is transitioning Isaac Lane Elementary to remote learning on Thursday, Jan. 20; Friday, Jan. 21; and Monday, Jan. 24.

Closures this past month: the remote learning waiver or a stockpile day

JMCSS also moved Northeast Middle and Denmark Elementary to remote learning on Jan. 14 and Jan. 18. A week prior, amid closure announcements due to inclement weather, the district cited the weather and increased COVID-19 isolations and quarantines among student and staff for announcing a two-day closure.

For a temporary transition to remote learning at Northeast and Denmark and now Isaac Lane, JMCSS had to document COVID-19’s impact on student and staff populations, then submit the waiver request application to the department of education.

JMCSS determined that there had to be one of the following to request to close individual schools:

  • Multiple cohorts or classes would have to have confirmed cases

  • 15% of all students have confirmed positive cases

  • 20% or more students isolated and quarantined, or

  • 30% or more staff isolated or quarantined

Until early January, the waiver allowed schools to do remote learning for up to seven days. That was reduced to a maximum of five calendar days.

Fayette County Schools temporarily moved one of its schools, LaGrange-Moscow Elementary School, to remote learning from Jan. 14 to Jan. 21.

To close the district rather than classrooms or schools, districts can use districtwide stockpile days.

School districts get 13 stockpile days – days accumulated by districts having seven hours of school rather than the required 6 1/2 hours. Often used for inclement weather, many districts exhausted most of those days last school year because they used them to delay the start of school or for closures.

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This school year, many districts have more days to spare if a districtwide closure is warranted.

The closure list will be updated as information becomes available.

Lasherica Thornton is The Jackson Sun's education reporter. Reach her at 731-343-9133 or by email at lthornton@jacksonsun.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LashericaT

This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: West TN schools announce closures, virtual days due to COVID-19