USVI delays physical return to school by two weeks
All public school students in grades Pre-K through 12 in the US Virgin Islands will begin this school term in a virtual setting from January 10.
At a media conference this afternoon, Governor Albert Bryan said the decision to use a virtual setting was made to provide a safe learning environment for students and teachers.
The government is looking at having physical classes from January 24.
All school staff will be required to show up at their respective institutions on January 7.
“The Department of Education personnel have been affected by the virus too, so even though we don’t have teachers in schools or monitors or cafeteria workers, they are still out there being infected by the general public in this community spread. We are already taking note of shortages in terms of having teachers available or having the personnel to do monitoring,” the governor stated.
“As we go on, we will be monitoring these staff shortages which is one of the reasons why it is so important to have people report on Friday so we will have a better picture of exactly how many people we have healthy, how many people we have with Covid-19, how many people are outside of the territory and trying to get in,” he said.
The governor said USVI education officials would follow their colleagues across the United States and continuously monitor the COVID-19 situation every two weeks before returning students and teachers to physical classes.
Approximately 2,111 persons are currently infected with COVID-19 in the USVI, and Bryan noted, “it does appear that we are beginning to see a slight plateau to that surge”.
Bryan has encouraged parents whose children are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine to ensure they get the job.
We understand that many students who are still eligible for the vaccines are not yet vaccinated. So if you are a parent out there, we want you to keep your children safe, so go out there and get them vaccinated,” he said while encouraging those that are vaccinated to get their booster shots.
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