Norwich Public Schools will be remote for the rest of the month because of staffing issues posed by people needing to quarantine due to coronavirus contact tracing.
Due to quarantining after possible exposure to the virus outside of school, the school department has had a difficult time staffing the schools, so the school department is moving to a remote learning model until Feb. 1, when schools are expected to return to a hybrid model.
“I am hopeful that over the next 2 weeks the health metrics will improve, more community members will have the opportunity to vaccinate, our staffing will become more stable and we can reopen in hybrid once again,” Stringfellow wrote.
There will be no school on Jan. 18 or 19, but Jan. 20-22 and Jan. 25-29 will be remote.
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Stringfellow shared information on virus rates in the City of Norwich and said the positivity rate during the week of Jan. 12 was 111 per 100,000. In comparison, the city’s positivity rate during the week of Oct. 19 was 40.7 per 100,000 and it was 18.1 during the week of Nov. 9.
While positivity rates are high in the City of Norwich, she said the transmission rate within schools is currently 1.3%.