St. Clair Schools to remain open, new policy in place

Published 2:40 pm Monday, December 7, 2020

The St. Clair Board of Education decided on Monday morning to leave schools in the county open on a traditional 5 days a week basis. This comes in the midst of rising Covid-19 cases throughout the county.

However, the board is implementing a new plan for their schools in the event of an outbreak of Covid-19.

The plan involves addressing the needs of schools at the community level and implementing the appropriate “stage” to combat the spread of the virus. Therefore, if a school in Springville has an outbreak, only the Springville schools will be affected with a potential partial switch or full switch to virtual school.

The stages are numbered one to six, with stage one being full school, stage two being “staggered,” all the way to stage 6 being full virtual. The stage will depend on the severity of the outbreak and the risk of further spread to other students. Furthermore, the virus has the potential to put a strain on staffing.

The announcement of a change in school policy will come from the community level from the schools’ principals, rather than the county level from the board.

For the board, it was important to maintain some level of normalcy for the students with a traditional 5-day format of school. According to St. Clair Superintendent Mike Howard, stage six is a last resort option only to be used if necessary.

“The goal is to not implement stage six until we have to. We want to wait as long as we possibly can,” Howard said.

However, Howard also says he recognizes the reality of having school in the middle of a pandemic. St. Clair County, as well as the rest of the country, is seeing a rise of virus cases. According to Howard, this puts a strain on staffing. These obstacles, combined with the potential for an outbreak, could lead to an implementation of one of the stages.

While all schools will remain open during the end of the semester, Howard and the rest of the board will continue to monitor the situation closely.