News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Dekalb County Schools will be fully virtual this week, after staffing shortages forced the school system to extend past the original December 11 return date.
School Director Patrick Cripps said schools were already short on substitute teachers when Dekalb County High School was the only school going fully virtual last week. Cripps said the system tried shifting staff to other schools, but quarantine numbers continued to rise.
“It just got to the point where we didn’t have enough staff from the high school to cover classrooms for the other schools, that were being affected by teachers and staff,” Cripps said. “That were testing positive or being quarantined for the COVID.”
Cripps said he fears what holiday gatherings might do to the system’s staffing after Christmas.
“One of our fears that we’ll have to keep monitoring, just like we started monitoring at Thanksgiving when families get together, we’ll be looking at the same situation,” Cripps said. “Planning that far in advance, to definitely say what we’re going to do, our intentions are to be going back January the 4th, back to in-person learning.”
Cripps said having enough devices for every student is a benefit during this time. He said this allows teaching to keep going on, despite staff being in quarantine.
“We’re one-to-one here, as far as devices and we require teachers to come in and teach from the school,” Cripps said. “We do still have a number of teachers that are quarantined, that are having to teach from their homes right now.”
This will be finals week for Dekalb County High School students. Cripps said parents without internet access can get information about WiFi hot spots on the schools Remind app.
