Depending on your child’s school district, you can’t be sure about children returning to school after the Thanksgiving holiday, just yet.
Opinions are being batted around among some school board members regarding canceling hybrid instruction and returning to online learning only. Possibly until the end of January, anonymous sources tell me .
Thanks to those sources, it was back on October 30th, I posted an opinion about an early shutdown being possible before Thanksgiving. I also noted the failure of local media outlets to report the rise of positive Covid-19 cases in school districts that month.
As it turned out, schools did shutter earlier than scheduled before Thanksgiving.
While the local media has mentioned cases in stories involving schools closing before Thanksgiving, it hasn’t specifically focused on the rise of Covid-19 cases in school districts, or pressed administrators on definitive answers about returning.
Now, the question is, will students be allowed to return on December 1st, following what everyone knows will have been many students and staff traveling to large gatherings with extended family?
An indicator might be found on school district Covid-19 Dashboards.
The Easton Area School District’s Covid-19 Dashboard may be the most telling. In October they had only 5 cases. With still a week left in November, their positive cases of Covid-19 have exploded to 46 among students and staff.
In the last two weeks, Bethlehem Area School District’s Dashboard reports 35 positive cases, more than double the cases reported for all of October.
Wilson Area School District has 9 cases, as of yesterday. It had 7 in October.
Disclaimer: On January 4, 2016, the owner of WestEastonPA.com began serving on the West Easton Council following an election. Postings and all content found on this website are the opinions of Matthew A. Dees and may not necessarily represent the opinion of the governing body for The Borough of West Easton.
