(ATLANTA) – Two suburban Atlanta school districts that began face-to-face categories Monday with optional mask policies face more questions about COVID-19 safety protocols after on-campus footage showed students shoulder to shoulder.
In Cherokee County, dozens of seniors joined two of the district’s top six schools to take classic photographs of seniors on the first day of school, with students hugging each other dressed in black suits.Hickory Flat or Etowah High School in Woodstock dressed in a mask.
In Paulding County, photographs of students taken Monday and Tuesday show crowded hallways at North Paulding High School in Dallas.Less than part of the students showed masks.
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Critics have largely mocked the photographs on social media, some county citizens have expressed support.
Georgia’s largest school district, Gwinnett County, said Tuesday that he hopes to return to face-to-face training after starting classes remotely.as a “better case.”
Georgia reached a new weekly COVID-19 death high on Tuesday, posting an average of 51 deaths showing deaths from respiratory diseases in the following seven days.makes the percentage of positive tests. Both can simply imply that the epidemic in Georgia has peaked.
The number of other people with COVID-19 in Hospitals in Georgia reached all-time highs last week, but declined slightly.
Paulding County Superintendent Brian Ottot in an email Tuesday said the photographs were accurate, but said the district followed state rules and that students needed more than a few minutes in the room to contract other people’s viruses.
Ottot wrote that elegance adjustments are “challenging” and that “this is a domain that we continue to paint in this new environment to locate practical tactics that prevent academics from joining in.” photo does not look good ».
Ottot defended the district’s resolve not to require masks, and wrote that “Wearing a mask is a non-public selection and there is no practical way to obtain a court order to use them.”
At least one North Paulding football player has been tested for coronavirus in recent days, among a lot of infected Georgian athletes.
Cherokee County School District spokeswoman Barbara Jacothrough said the images were not an authorized activity and that officials only noticed them when the images were posted on social media, not knowing why staff members did not provide or separate the groups.related to Sequoyah High School shared the photo by typing “Welcome back !!!”however, the symbol was subsequently removed.
“Like each and every early day of school, students and parents took pictures of the ‘first day’ before outdoor classes began, some of the photographs were of students wearing masks and others of students without masks.”Jacoby wrote in an email.
Jacoby wrote that the district continues to “strongly inspire and propose that all students move in and, when they cannot, wear a mask at school and on buses.”
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Cherokee County officials later announced that a sixes elementary school student near Canton tested positive for the virus.The child’s instructor and 20 other students were quarantined home and learned online for 14 days.
Superintendent Brian Hightower had already angered some with an email friday that some interpreted as suggesting they resign if they had COVID-19 disorders.
“For those of you who are not satisfied with aspects of our reopening plan, I ask you to think of the most productive direction for you in your role at CCDS,” Hightower wrote.
On Saturday, Hightower wrote an email saying that he had listened to “several” workers and that “I should have done a much greater task by sharing my appreciation for their efforts and considerations related to the reopening of our school.”
Cherokee and Paulding were georgia’s largest districts to resume full schooling five days a week on Monday.Both will offer parents the option of five-day-a-week categories or online learning.In Paulding, 30% of academics chose online learning, while 22% chose it in Cherokee.
Gwinnett County has announced that it will begin fully virtual schooling on August 12.Gwinnett and Cobb County, who also announced virtual schooling, faced protests from parents, who are not easy face-to-face classes.
The Gwinnett district, which has 180,000 fellows, announced Tuesday that it will likely seek to bring kindergarten, first-grade, sixth graders, freshmen and some special education academics back to school starting August 26.
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“Protecting academics will be the key to determining the speed at which we will move forward,” Wilbanks wrote, adding that adjustments might be needed “depending on the still-fluid COVID-19 scenario.”
The Cobb County District, with 111,000 students, and the Fulton County District, which has 94,000 students, are also discussing staggered returns.Both say that decisions will be taken in COVID-19 case grades and have not proposed a date.
“We continue to say that the face-to-face hall of elegance is the lifestyle of maximum productive elegance for maximum students and we remain committed to offering parents choices of face-to-face and remote elegance,” Cobb wrote in an ad Tuesday.