Students in Marion County, Tennessee, won't start school until Sept. 8 after the county school board, with the state's approval, voted to delay classes because of the coronavirus, a move that affects the school calendar for the entire year.
The return to a "golden days" school start following Labor Day means fall break is wiped from the coming school year calendar and spring break 2021 will be two days long. Other breaks also have been condensed.
"We were prepared to start today but the board felt like they want to push it back," Marion County Director of Schools Mark Griffith said Monday in a video statement, "just to let, possibly, the cases and the numbers go down across the county,"
On Tuesday, Marion County ranked 11th among the 19-county Times Free Press circulation area in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama in average new COVID-19 cases a day per 10,000 people. Marion, so far, has had 208 cases, 21 hospitalizations, four deaths, 3,540 tests, 3,282 negative labs and 122 people with the virus have recovered, according to Tennessee Department of Health records as of 3 p.m. Tuesday.
Under the original 2020-21 school year calendar, the first day for teachers to report for in-service training would have been Aug. 3, Griffith said. A new 2020-2021 school year calendar was uploaded to the state Department of Education last week, and an updated calendar has been sent to teachers and posted to the school system's website.
"With this calendar, we have to get 180 instructional days in by state law, so we had to condense breaks and remove breaks," Griffith said. "With this calendar there will no fall break."
Griffith said he'd already been getting emails from parents about planned vacations and trips during the originally scheduled fall break.
"We will be working with you all on that, to be honest," he said, of potential negotiations on the surprise scheduling change.
The new calendar also affects Thanksgiving break. Rather than a week off for the holiday, students will be off Thursday and Friday that week, Griffith said.
For winter break, an abbreviated day is Dec. 21 and then teachers and students will be off until Jan. 4, 2021, with students' first full day of school falling on Jan. 5, 2021, according to Griffith.
(Check out the latest coronavirus data, updated daily, for Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.)
Parents' reactions have been mixed, some posting on Griffith's video statement that they understand or support the change, others saying it puts an unnecessary surprise burden on parents.
There were numerous "thank you" posts. Monteagle resident Mindy Melton applauded the move, saying, "Thank you for being a voice of reason and responsibility. You all have my upmost [sic] respect for this very admirable decision."
Others, like Lisa Bardin Dodd in South Pittsburg, more than dislike the loss of breaks.
"I hate the idea of the short spring break," Dodd wrote. "The other shortened breaks I understand, but the kids need that spring break, and so many parents make plans for it."
Sept. 1 is registration day for students, Griffith said, but "now most schools are doing pre-registration, drive-thru registration, and we do strongly encourage you to take advantage of that."
Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.