CMCSS announces district-wide remote learning, Dec. 16-Dec.18

December 15, 2020

Please note: This article was originally posted during a previous school year. Information and/or dates from past events
may be not be relevant for the current school year.

Due to staffing issues and in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, all CMCSS traditional students will transition to remote learning tomorrow, Wed., Dec. 16 through Fri., Dec. 18. As a reminder, Mon., Dec. 21 is a pre-planned, district-wide remote learning day before Winter Break, so traditional students will not return to buildings until Mon., Jan. 4.

With remote learning, students will not report to the school building as they will access learning via the laptops provided by the district. Athletics and extracurricular events will be cancelled or postponed. Teachers will communicate with students on how to access lessons. For more information on remote learning, visit cmcss.net/remote.

Families who need access to no-cost meals during this remote learning time may pick up meals at any CMCSS elementary school on the following days. Weekend meals will be available on Fri., Dec. 18 from 1 – 2 p.m. Meals for remote learning and Winter Break will be available on Mon., Dec. 21 from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.

While the CMCSS Communicable Disease Team (CDT) and the Montgomery County Health Department (MCHD) do not have specific thresholds for transitioning to remote learning, other than community spread, recent community and statewide data have heightened concerns. Last week, the White House Task Force classified Montgomery County as a red zone and the state’s new cases per 100,000 residents have exceeded national averages. Yesterday, the district reached a new record of 40 new cases in 20 unique schools, and the community reached a new record for community spread at 0.667%, which is almost double the percentage from last week. In total, there are currently 150 active COVID-19 student and employee school-level cases. MCHD is concerned that Clarksville-Montgomery County will reach high spread, or 1% or more, in the next week or two. In addition to COVID-19 community data, yesterday, around 400 employees were on COVID-19 related leave and over 2,000 students had COVID-19 related absences. After substitutes were assigned, there were still almost 140 unfilled teacher absences and almost one-fourth of school nurses were absent.

CMCSS employees have been working tirelessly to make adjustments, remain flexible, and think outside the box to keep in-person learning possible for traditional students over the past four months. The decision to transition to remote learning was not taken lightly and was made in response to the conditions of the pandemic. We remain hopeful that the conditions of the pandemic will improve after Winter Break to allow in-person learning to resume for those families that chose that option. The CDT and MCHD will continue to monitor data daily over the break and update families. Please follow the guidance of our local, state, and national public health officials and medical experts to reduce the spread of COVID-19.