Ohio County in-person hybrid schedule working well

After a week off for Fall Break, Ohio County Schools resumed its in-person hybrid learning again Monday.

Students attended in-person classes for two-full weeks prior to the break, and Superintendent Seth Southard said things have gone very smoothly.

“Things have been going pretty well,” Southard said Monday. “Staff and students alike were very excited to get back to in-person instruction. The hybrid schedule has been working well with fewer students in the building.”

Approximately 80% of Ohio County students are attending classes in-person with the rest doing classwork virtually. The school district is utilizing the Hybrid A and B schedule. The A group goes to class on Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday; the B group goes on Tuesday, Thursday and every other Friday.

Most classes have 10 students or less. The small numbers have made lunch manageable as students are able to eat in the cafeteria at a safe distance from each other.

Southard said there has not been a big concern of COVID-19 since the start of in-person classes but that there were some positive cases reported during Fall Break.

“There were a couple of days where there were 12 cases reported in Ohio County. That did affect some of our staff.”

As of Monday, Southard said there were currently five staff members with active cases and one student. Four of the five staff cases of COVID-19 were reported during Fall Break, according to Southard. He said there were “a few” students who were quarantined at home due to a member of their household having tested positive. That occurred during Fall Break, and they are required to quarantine for 14 days because they are in the same household, he said.

Southard said while families who vacationed during Fall Break could pose a potential risk, he trusts that everyone made safe decisions if they traveled.

“Certainly, (fall break) created opportunity for (COVID-19) numbers to change, you hope and trust that everyone made wise decisions while on vacation – that they wore their masks and washed their hands and if they did that we will be just fine,” Southard said.

The Current Incidence Rate in the county is as of Tuesday afternoon at 28, which puts the county in the red “critical” category.

The Seven-Day incidence is calculated by taking the total number of unique cases in each county over the past seven days, divided by seven to get a daily average, divided by the U.S. census bureau county population, and multiplied by 100,000 to get the incidence per 100,000 people.

It is recommended by the Kentucky Department of Education that schools go back to remote learning once the county becomes red. Southard said that does not mean that is what Ohio County Schools will do.

Southard said the district will continue to monitor the cases in the school and a decision would be based on how many cases are in the schools not in the county.

“Just because our county goes into red doesn’t mean we will automatically go remote. We will certainly be looking and watching very closely and if we start having numerous issues within our schools or in a given school we may have to go remote.”