MONROE COUNTY, Ga. — During a called emergency board meeting on Thursday, Monroe County Superintendent Mike Hickman recommended switching all of their middle school students to online learning.
"This past week, especially this week -- we had including a diagnosis today -- we have eight student cases of COVID at Monroe County Middle School and we had another teacher that was diagnosed," he said.
The school has over 80 students and staff members quarantining. Starting Monday, they will all switch to remote learning for 10 school days.
One parent shared his thoughts about the online setup, saying class meetings were too short and he wished for students to be able to watch teachers give lessons virtually as if they were in class instead of the posting and submitting assignments method.
"A lot of times, for 6th and 7th grades especially, they need supervision, and sometimes, they might not be available for the internet until after parents are off work where they can help them, so they have some flexibility as far as the time goes, so we wanted to be able to do that so they weren't tied in at 8:00 in the morning or 9:30 in the morning," Hickman said.
They're planning for students to return in person after fall break on October 19th.
"We knew this was going to happen, and there's going to be transitions and this probably won't be the last transition that we'll have to make, but we've worked really hard to do better each time, and I would just ask that parents be patient," Hickman said.
The middle school's ACCESS classes, Flexible Learning Program and C-team athletics will continue in person.
Students at Mary Persons High School, all three elementary schools and the Monroe Achievement Center will also remain in-person.