BLECKLEY COUNTY, Ga. — The Bleckley County School District is allowing staff and students quarantined due to COVID exposure to return to the building -- as long as they don't have any symptoms.
The board of education voted unanimously to allow that Tuesday, under three conditions: If they are asymptomatic, no one in the household is COVID-positive, and if they wear a mask while inside any school building and on school buses.
A release from the school system says the following:
"The first day of school for Bleckley County Schools was August 6, and the system knew of 29 students who were positive at that time. One week later, the number of positive students was 30, and yesterday (Aug. 17) the number was still 30."
The number of quarantined students, however, has grown from 68 on the first day to 151 as of Tuesday. Under the newly passed rule, most of the students would be allowed back in the classroom.
Superintendent Steve Smith acknowledges in the release that the latest move comes, in part, after seeing students socializing and ignoring quarantine rules.
“While some may question the reasoning, we actually have seen many students who were supposed to be quarantined walking and riding around town, continuing to socialize, and completely ignoring the quarantine rules. We want them in school, but we also want to increase the safety of those around them by requiring them to mask up. We agreed that if the number of positive cases within our schools increase dramatically over the next two weeks, our next step is a system-wide mask mandate," wrote Smith.
The board agreed to meet again in two weeks to review the results and modify the plans, if necessary.
