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Sumner Schools close for a week due to COVID-19





Sumner County Schools will be closed Sept. 6-10.File

Sumner County Schools will be closed Sept. 6-10.File

Sumner County Schools used four stockpile days this week and closed its doors Sept. 7 to 10 in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The district had already planned to be closed on Labor Day, Sept. 6.

The announcement on Sept. 1 followed a month that saw cases of the coronavirus surge among school-age children across the mid-state due to a highly contagious delta variant.

A total of 1,191 Sumner County residents tested positive for the coronavirus from Aug. 23-30, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. Of those, 427 cases were school-aged children age 5-18 years old.

In total, 4,634 Sumner County school-age children have tested positive for the virus since March of 2020. Of that number, 1,226 have tested positive since the start of Sumner County Schools’ 2021-22 school year on Aug. 3.

While the state health department releases the number of COVID-19 cases by age and county, it’s not known how many of those cases are in Sumner County Schools.

Several mid-state school districts like those in Williamson, Wilson, Robertson and Rutherford counties, and Metro Nashville post the number of students and staff who test positive for the coronavirus on their websites. Sumner County Schools does not release that information.

Sumner County Schools Spokesperson Jeremy Johnson said the district’s decision to close schools for a week was in response to the county’s community spread rate.

“Everybody is aware that we’ve had rising COVID-19 numbers throughout our community,” he said. “We feel like we’re at a point where we need to do something to mitigate the spread. Hopefully when we return [on Sept. 13] we’ll see those numbers decreased.”

There were 2,050 active COVID-19 cases in Sumner County when the school district announced the closure, translating to an active spread rate of 1 percent.

The spread rate was used as a marker during the 2020-21 school year to determine if students would follow a hybrid, in-person or remote learning model. At that time, a 1 percent or higher rate triggered a switch to remote learning.

Although a new state law doesn’t allow school districts to transition to the hybrid or remote learning models, state Commissioner Penny Schwinn sent a letter to school leaders recently saying individual schools may be allowed to request the virtual option temporarily if they can document a need related to COVID-19.

Johnson said this may be an option for some Sumner County schools in the future, but for now it made sense for the district to close schools countywide.

There will be no instruction via GoogleClassroom during the closure. Extracurricular activities, including athletic games and practices, will be allowed to continue provided they occur after the normal school dismissal time.

The school district has 13 stockpile days total – two of which may be used for administrative functions, according to Johnson. The district has used one of those days for teacher training. After this week, the district will be left with eight inclement weather days.

Other school districts have announced closures due to COVID-19 including Wilson, Warren, Rutherford and Coffee counties.

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