WW County saw a weekend spike of over 100 new cases bringing us to 293 active cases in the past 14 days, a doubling of cases in College Place, the capacity of our hospitals and contact tracing strained, and the slowing turnaround of test results. These indicators became an immediate concern for the district in evaluating continuing school safely onsite.
The district had been closely monitoring these indicators to determine the overall spread of COVID-19 in the area and whether it could safely continue to hold in-person instruction onsite. Despite the district's onsite successes in hybrid learning and no positive cases in the schools, the indicators dictated a different direction for the district moving forward.
The district reported that the situation now is far worse than the negative conditions that caused it to begin the year in Full Remote Learning on September 8th. In partnership with WW County Health Officials, CPPS determined a need for schools to return to Full Remote Learning effective Monday, November 9. School staff will spend the next days preparing students for the transition back to remote learning. Parents/guardians who would like opt to have their students stay at home the remainder of this week (November 4-6) to work from home may do so by informing the school office.
The district will continue to monitor county and city conditions as it has done throughout the pandemic with an anticipated return to its yellow Hybrid Learning Model on Monday, November 30, 2020.