Photo: WINA
CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – In the first split vote on the matter since they first started considering school schedules during COVID, the Charlottesville School Board has decided to delay the start of in-person instruction. A plan approved in December was only going to send a limited number of students back to the classrooms starting with elementary students January 19. However, after hearing the metrics in the face of a post-holiday surge in COVID cases locally, statewide, and nationally, the board voted 4-3 to delay that date until March 8.
Board members discussed the issue for some two hours before taking the vote. The plan would have sent the most-challenged students either academically or access-wise back to classes starting January 19 and middle- and high-schoolers back February 1. The plan is to bring all pre-K through 2nd graders back, as well as 3rd through 6th graders with critical needs. About 70-to-80 targeted students would have gone back to Buford Mi
Photo: WINA
CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – The COVID metrics are going to have to be a lot better than they are now, even as the Charlottesville School Board passed scaled-back recommendations by Superintendent Rosa Atkins for in-person learning starting next semester. COVID Advisory Committee member and CATEC Director Dr. Beth Baptist cautioned the numbers are way up 3 weeks after Thanksgiving, and her sit-downs with the TJHD indicate they not only anticipate similar for the weeks following Christmas and New Years, but they will likely be worse. She says that’s because of the 2-week break and longer duration people will be spending in groups outside their households. So, along with the School Board passing Atkins’ scaled-back plan, they also agreed with Atkins’ recommendation that the board meet every 2 weeks to determine which direction to go as the numbers change favoring or deterring in-person school.