Four Huntsville City Schools move to virtual learning

The classroom.

Waay 31's will robinson smith is live at columbia high school tonight.

He learned how huntsville city schools administrators are responding to the increase in cases.

Will?

Each of the four schools that will be teaching remotely next week have seen more than a hundred people quarantined within the past 14 days.

Officials say it's a combination of how many are in quarantine, the number of positive cases and the availability of substitute teachers that determine whether a school goes remote.

Craig williams, chief communications officer, huntsville city schools when you have a lot of teachers at one campus who may be in quarantine, what that does is it pools all substitute teachers essentially to one location.

And so all those factors are taken into account.

It's a calculation that chief communications officer craig williams says doesn't come easy.

For instance -- ridgecrest elementary school has 416 students and staff in traditional learning right now.

149 of them are in quarantine with five positive cases within the past two weeks.

Columbia high school meanwhile has 137 people in quarantine and it's the second time in less than a month that school has gone remote.

Williams says that ability to toggle back and forth shows their response plan is working as intended.

We did the preparation back then so that we're now in a place where we can execute what we planned for all summer long, which is ultimately the ability to make adjustments when you need to.

He says it's unclear if any schools would go full remote for the rest of the semester -- but with madison county re- entering the 'very high risk' category on friday -- williams asks parents and guardians to be especially vigilent with the holidays fast approaching.

We are partners with parents and we truly ask parents for their support in making good decisions and making sure we're promoting a safe and healthy learning environment outside the building, so we can have safe students inside the building.

Students at goldsmith schiffman, ridgecrest, huntsville and columbia will all return for in-person learning on november 30.

Reporting live at columbia high school -- will robinson-smith -- waay 31 news.

Thanks will.

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