Hamilton County School Moves Virtual Due to Spike in COVID Cases

HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WDEF) – In an e-mail sent to parents and faculty, Ootlewah High School officials said the school would be closed today, and students would move to virtual learning, while administrators assessed the situation.

Hamilton County Schools Tim Hensley says the school district continues to be vigilant by enforcing CDC guidelines, like wearing masks.

“We close schools for two reasons. We close schools if we need to do contact tracing or if we need to do cleaning at a school. So anytime we close a school we contact parents, we let them know the schedule and a lot of times it’s due to the timing on when the school district may find out about a possible situation,” says Tim Hensley.

Hensley says if all goes well with disinfecting the school, students could be able to return to campus as early as tomorrow.

In Whitfield County, Sherry Gregory says that trends are similar – although rates of infection in schools have decreased slightly in recent weeks.

The North Georgia Health District Infectious Disease Director says that most transmissions happen outside the classroom.

“We have seen, you know, different transmission in certain sports – volleyball, football, we have seen those. And we’ve taken those actions, you know, to curtail that. But it’s not just in a sports activity or just an extracurricular activity, I mean, the kids get together outside of school too,” says Sherry Gregory.

Hamilton County Schools continues to urge parents to follow available data online and make a plan.