Five schools near Charlotte switch to remote learning amid COVID rise, official says
On the same day masks became mandatory in their district, five schools near Charlotte announced a temporary switch Thursday to remote learning due to a rise in active COVID-19 cases.
Lakeshore Middle School, East Iredell Middle School, West Iredell Middle School, North Iredell High School and Central Elementary School are scheduled to resume in-class instruction on Monday, Sept. 13, Iredell-Statesville Schools spokeswoman Boen Nutting said. No updated COVID numbers were released with the announcement.
“Our number one priority is to continue with face-to-face learning,” Nutting said in a news release. “Sending students home will hopefully mitigate the spread of COVID and allow us to come back healthy.”
On Tuesday, the Board of Education voted to require masks beginning on Thursday.
School officials hope the new policy will curb the spread of COVID-19 in classrooms and close contacts, Nutting said.
“When individuals aren’t masked or vaccinated, the quarantine rules inhibit our ability to keep kids in classrooms,” she said. “While our community is utterly divided on the topic of masks, I believe that most of us agree that students need to be in the classroom. That’s our primary goal.”
On Monday, the district reported that for the week of Aug. 20-26, 583 Iredell-Statesville students were quarantined from school contact, or 2.85% of the overall student population.
Ten staff members and 59 students tested positive that week, less than 1% of the overall staff and student populations in the district, according to ISS data.
Officials also reported 202 students were isolated with COVID-19 symptoms that week, also representing less than 1% of the student population.
Twenty-three of the district’s 41 schools had at least one confirmed COVID-19 case reported on campus that week, officials said.
With more than 20,000 students, the district ranks among the 20 largest in the state, according to its website.
Other Charlotte-area school districts have likewise grappled with a rise in cases that doctors at Charlotte hospitals say is due to the highly contagious delta variant.
Nearly 2,000 people, including students and staff, are quarantined in Union County Schools, as 176 tested positive for COVID-19 within the district, WBTV reported Wednesday.
Nearly all of North Carolina’s school districts are now mandating face masks, The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported Thursday. Rising COVID numbers have caused entire districts to switch temporarily to online, according to the newspaper.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 7:25 PM.