Montco Schools With COVID Outbreaks Told To Go Fully Online
Editor's note: this story previously stated that officials asked all Montgomery County schools to go fully online. That is incorrect. Only schools with COVID-19 outbreaks are being told to move fully online.
NORRISTOWN, PA — As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations rapidly rise in Montgomery County, officials say that school districts which experience outbreaks should move to fully virtual learning.
The surge comes just as school districts around the county were settling into new hybrid models of instruction, and as others were amid preparations for a long awaited partial return to in-person classes.
"We're simply asking schools (with outbreaks) to go back to 100 percent virtual," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said Wednesday. "And they're all prepared to do that. They all knew coming out of the gate that they might have to revert to 100 percent virtual."
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Some schools have already done so. Lower Moreland School District started fully virtual classes on Wednesday after 11 cases were reported among students and staff over the last three weeks. The district also had numerous other students and families in quarantine as they awaited COVID-19 test results.
The shift is "in order to avoid any possibility of transmission of COVID-19 in our buildings at a time when community spread is elevated," Superintendent Scott Davidheiser said in a letter sent home to parents. "Lower Moreland Township School District considers the health and well-being of our students, staff and community to be of the utmost importance."
They plan to keep schools closed to in-person classes for at least two weeks, with a goal of returning on Nov. 16.
The county recommendation for districts with outbreaks is not an order, but rather guidance based on rising cases and concern for the health of students and staff.
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Some school districts have already returned to classes. Souderton began in-person instruction for some students back in September, and others slowly phased back to a hybrid models in October.
Meanwhile, many other districts that had been fully online are gearing up for their reopenings. Wissahickon, which has offered full time in-person instruction for elementary students all fall, plans to return with a hybrid model of instruction at the secondary level next Monday, Nov. 9.
Abington, which has been fully virtual thus far, has announced plans to reopen on Nov. 30.
Norristown is one of the few school districts in Montgomery County which has not suggested any kind of reopening plan this fall. Officials there announced over the summer that no schools would reopen in person until Jan. 2021 at the earliest.
Lower Moreland is not the only school district to see outbreaks and quarantines. In addition to numerous cases, there have been 594 students across the county who have had "close contact" with an infected person this school year, officials said.
Any student within six feet of an individual who has tested positive is considered a close contact, and is told by contact tracers to go into quarantine.
Where these contacts take place largely depends on the school. Many schools are large enough, or have been able to plan their reopens carefully enough, that students are almost always six feet away from one another in classrooms. In other districts with smaller classrooms this has proved impossible, officials said.
This article originally appeared on the Norristown Patch
