The Auburn Enlarged City School District is transitioning to fully-remote learning due to a significant increase in COVID-19 infection and spread in the community.
Superintendent Jeff Pirozzolo made the announcement on Tuesday.
“Beginning tomorrow, December 9, all of our schools will move to full remote learning through January 19, with a tentative in-person return date of Wednesday, January 20, 2021. I know this is disappointing news, but the health and safety of our school community remains our number one priority,” Pirozzolo said in a recorded Zoom video to the community.
“Even though we have not seen the virus spread throughout our schools, we have seen a single positive case cause dozens of employees and students in our school community to have to go into mandatory quarantine, and that is really our main issue. Due to the vast number of employees in quarantine, we are just not able to obtain enough substitutes to fulfill these vacancies,” he continued. “In addition, on top of the large number of students in quarantine, we have also had a significant number of students transfer to the full remote learning model, which has drastically minimized the number of students we are actually teaching in-person. With so many students in remote learning at this time, temporarily transitioning everyone to a full remote learning model will really allow us to meet the needs of all of our students better since teachers will be able to focus solely on remote instruction.”
Even students in the BOCES and CTE programs will transition to fully-remote learning. The district said there will be no no extracurricular activities during this time unless they are able to held virtually. There will also be no before and afterschool programs running.
“Furthermore, there will be no Head Start preschool classrooms running inside AECSD school buildings. Additional information from Head Start will be forthcoming,” Pirozzolo added. “The school principals and program directors will be sending out more specific information related to your student’s classes. Also, if you have any technology-related questions or issues, please reach out to our technology department at [email protected] or (315) 255-8863.”
The district will continue to provide grab-n-go breakfasts and lunches to all students on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. at Auburn Junior High, Casey Park, and Genesee.
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