Putnam School’s Virtual Learning Deadline Friday

There’s one week left for Putnam Parents to decide how their kids complete the 2020-2021 school year.

Putnam County School Director Corby King said the system needs a clear direction for how each student plans to learn, whether it be in-person or remote. King said the uncertainty of how students will attend is affecting the learning environment.

“If there are 50 students that transition back in-person or go remote, 50 to 100 students that make that transition,” King said. “We’re having to pull and shift staff and its hard to cover that.”

King said the result so far has been teachers working with in-person students during the day, and then checking on virtual learners when they are home at night.

But King said the school system will continue to monitor COVID-19 closely. If changes occur with the outbreak, the system will respond.

“If there are major changes within our community that the boards not able to reevaluate this,” King said. “And say, ‘okay there’s a vaccine out now, our positivity rate is dropped really low, we know we have a lot of parents who want to come back into the school setting,’ so lets allow them to come back into the school setting.”

The school board voted Friday to finalize plans for second semester December 3.