Pine Grove Area School District announced Friday that its school board committed on Thursday to keeping schools open through the second marking period.
Specifically, Pine Grove Area said it’ll stick with its “blended” or hybrid class schedule for the Middle and High schools for that long. And it’s committing to keeping its Elementary School open on a full in-person schedule through the end of the second marking period.
The school indicates that it could deviate from this plan “if circumstances change.”
Superintendent Heath Renninger told parents in Pine Grove Area that the school would continue with its current schedule format despite the rising number of reported positive cases of COVID-19 in Schuylkill County.
Renninger did write in his letter to parents that “Parents and guardians should prepare now for childcare needs if a future pivot to fully online learning would occur, which ultimately may come on short notice.”
Pine Grove says it’s experienced a very low incidence rate of COVID infections within the school. The district even created a COVID-19 Tracker document that it’s posted on the school website, similar to a move made recently by North Schuylkill School District and since copied by Mahanoy Area School District.
According to that tracker, Pine Grove has had 1 probable case of COVID-19 within its walls in the last week. That was a student at the middle school and only 2 other support staff members were told to self-quarantine as a result. Throughout the school year so far, Pine Grove’s had 5 cases of COVID-19 among students, including the 1 active case, and 2 among outside contractors.
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