'When it hits home, it's scary:' Atlanta parents worry after Fulton County Schools teacher tests positive for coronavirus
ATLANTA — Yvonne Walker is terrified to send her 17-year-old daughter back to Fulton County Schools.
The 93,500-student school district was closed Tuesday after a teacher who worked in two middle schools tested positive for coronavirus, potentially exposing some 150 students.
Walker, whose daughter attends Benjamin Banneker High School in College Park, Georgia, planned to take her daughter to the doctor and is considering keeping her out of class for the rest of the week.
“When it hits home, it's scary," said Walker, a secretary for the South Fulton PTA Council. "I think they should do schoolwork from home. They have computers and smartphones ... until it boils over.”
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Parents across metro Atlanta shared Walker's concern as they awaited word from school officials. The district announced Tuesday evening it would remain closed Wednesday to allow crews more time to clean and disinfect all 106 schools across the city's sprawling northern and southern suburbs.
The emergency closure of one of the nation's largest school districts comes as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the country and health officials struggle to contain the disease. As of Tuesday, there were more than 950 coronavirus cases in the United States, including six confirmed cases in Georgia. The nation's death toll is 28.
Fulton County Schools Superintendent Mike Looney said the infected teacher worked at Bear Creek Middle School in Fairburn and Woodland Middle School in East Point, both in southern part of the county. The unidentified teacher had “a lot of contact with students and employees," Looney said.
Instructors in the district teach an average of five to six classes a day with about 25 students, Looney said, so 125 to 150 students could have been exposed.
Looney said the teacher fell ill at work Friday and someone at the school called 911. The teacher was then admitted to a local hospital. It's unclear how the teacher contracted coronavirus, Looney said.
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“The health and well-being of our students and faculty members is of paramount importance to our school district and to our board," Looney told reporters. “And until we can understand the breadth of this particular issue, I think caution is better than negligence.”
Looney said the school district has a digital learning plan that will go into effect if schools are closed for three consecutive days. That would allow students to complete course work remotely.
Sydney Brown, who was at the East Point Library with her 10-year-old granddaughter Tuesday, said she was babysitting so her daughter could go to work.
Brown said she didn't realize the virus was such a risk until the schools closed.
"I've heard them talking about it, but I didn't know it was that serious," said Brown, whose granddaughter is a fifth grader at RISE Prep School.
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Alisa Walker, whose son is a freshman at North Springs High School in Sandy Springs, applauded the district for taking the precautionary measure of closing all the schools.
Still, she said she was concerned about the virus spreading.
Her son's school is in northern Fulton County but he rides district buses, plays baseball against students across the district and outside with kids in their south Fulton County neighborhood.
"It's still an uneasy feeling as a parent with all that’s going on," Alisa Walker said. "Especially not knowing how many kids are affected."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: Atlanta schools close after teacher's positive test
