Local school leaders address COVID-19 in the classrooms

JACKSON, Tenn. — Several schools in West Tennessee have seen or are currently seeing COVID-19 cases in classrooms increase.

“As the COVID numbers rise in our community, they also rise in our school system. And so the good thing about that is as those numbers decline in our community, they also decline in our schools,” said Greg Hammond, Chief of Public Information for the Jackson-Madison County School System.

As of Jan. 28, 178 students and 45 staff from Madison County are currently isolating for COVID-19, while 551 students are quarantining along with 23 staff members.

“We’ve had classrooms close down. We’ve also had a few schools shut down as well,” Hammond said. “It was due to the amount of spread in the school or the amount of among staff, and we just didn’t have the staff to keep the schools open.”

Along with JMCSS, the Milan Special School District has also seen a peak in cases, causing schools to close for several days due to a large percent of students and staff infected or exposed.

“Our ability to have school, it depends on whether our cafeteria people are in or our bus people are able to be there, and then also to make sure that we’re filling IEPs. Just the variety of people in school make a difference,” said Jonathan Criswell, Director of Schools for the Milan Special School District.

In the beginning of the pandemic, nearly every school in the U.S. was fully virtual.

Now, two years later, school districts are unable to go fully virtual unless they fill out a waiver.

“We believe students benefit greatly when they are in front of a teacher, face-to-face. The new laws do not allow us as a school district, for us to do virtual learning unless we apply for a waiver and send that to the commissioner,” Criswell said.

Both school districts numbers are on the decline, but school leaders are urging parents to keep their child home if they feel sick.

Due to case numbers and test accessibility, the Milan school district is offering free testing for Milan students, staff, and parents through their Milan School Health Clinic.

Call Milan Elementary at (731) 686-0840 to receive more information on testing.

You can find more local news through the WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News app.