Gainesville City Schools students must wait a little longer to return to the classroom, but not to head back to school.
Remote learning will pick back up at the same time as approved on the previous calendar, August 17. Face to face instruction will then transition back on September 8.
Superintendent Jeremy Williams cited growing numbers in Hall County as the reasoning for the calendar change.
"The guidance that they (Northeast Georgia Health Systems) have provided and also some of the data that they're showing us within their system," said Williams. He shared testing data from the health system over the past few months, with a decrease from the "hot spot" numbers in April and May, with an uptick over the last few weeks. "So we're back to this range of 24% to 28%, where we were back in April."
Williams used data from the Department of Public Health and the hospital system.
"What our hope is, as we pull all of this together, as I mentioned before, our goal is to go face to face," he said. "But we feel like at this point, at this time, to go face to face would kind of be a disservice, not only to our health community, but putting our employees families in a position to where if it's already at a level where we've peeked before, can we comfortably come back?"
Teachers will still start their school year in the classroom, giving them more space to work and allowing them engage with other teachers.
Williams added that this calendar change will not impact Virtual Academy students or student activities.
As for virus testing, it currently will not be required to attend any of the Gainesville City Schools, with Williams and Deputy Superintendent Sarah Bell stating that not only was the timing of testing key to truly catching the viral spread, but also because they felt consistent behavioral changes made more of a difference in the overall health of students, teachers and staff.
