A 2nd Coast district is returning all students to classrooms during COVID-19 pandemic
Hancock County School District announced Tuesday it is ending virtual learning during the coronavirus pandemic, and all students will return to classrooms on Monday, Oct. 26.
Exceptions will be made for students “with an extreme underlying health condition” or who have “a full-time resident of his or her home experiencing an extreme underlying health condition,” the district said in a press release.
Those students must have a parent apply for Medical Long Term Distance Learning on the district’s website, hancockschools.net. Students with an IEP that requires homebound placement also will continue to learn at home.
The change comes near the end of a two-week quarantine for the entire high school after 17 of its 222 students and three staff members tested positive for the coronavirus.
Two days before the quarantine began, the entire football team went into quarantine and forfeited its upcoming game against Jackson County’s St. Martin High School. But after more new cases were found, the school announced the whole student body would learn virtually for two weeks.
Hancock High principal attributed the cases to community spread, “not likely school spread.”
High school students are set to return to classes tomorrow, Oct. 14.
About 14% of the district’s 4,159 students have been learning virtually, the press release said.
“We know that students learn best when physically at school, interacting with a teacher and classmates,” Superintendent Alan Dedeaux said in a press release. “Many of our students that were distance learners and returned to traditional learning at mid-term of the first nine weeks were not performing well academically. Since their return, we are already seeing improvement.”
The district also said its leaders “feel they have been successful with managing positive COVID-19 cases since the return of school.
It’s also possible the district could return to virtual learning if needed, Dedeaux said in the release.
All non-excepted students must return by Oct. 26 or be counted absent.
