St. Paul Public Schools and several other districts announced Friday that they will close schools in the coming weeks in response to the growing coronavirus pandemic.
In St. Paul, 368 special-education students will revert to remote services and instruction on Monday, just four weeks after they started receiving in-person services two days a week. The other 99 percent of the district’s students will continue with distance learning, as they have since March.
Thursday will be the last day for Discovery Club, the district’s fee-based child care program. But free, school-day child care will continue to be offered to the children of Tier I workers, so long as they are currently enrolled or every guardian in the house qualifies as an essential worker.
St. Paul school athletics will continue, for now. And the in-person Academic Support Center at Washington Technology Magnet will remain open, at least through Thursday.
Ramsey County had just under 50 new coronavirus cases per 10,000 residents from test samples collected Oct. 18-31. State guidelines suggest all schools be closed if the case rate exceeds 50.
Superintendent Joe Gothard told families Friday that staffing shortages have become a problem.
“Our safety protocols are being followed and we have no current concerns about internal spread within our schools. The challenge is in our operational capacity,” he wrote ” … As more staff are staying home due to symptoms of COVID-19, illness of a household member or other exposure to an infected person, it becomes increasingly difficult to provide the basic services our students need.”
Several other districts also announced transitions to distance learning on Friday, the day after the state’s weekly update on county-level coronavirus case rates.
Anoka-Hennepin and Spring Lake Park called off elementary school classes for the entire week of Thanksgiving to prepare for distance learning the following week.
The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district plans to close its elementary schools Nov. 23.
South Washington County elementary schools will begin distance learning Dec. 7. Four days of classes will be canceled to prepare teachers for the change.
Of the state’s 20 largest school districts, only Minnetonka plans to let middle and high school students continue going to school twice a week next month. At least 15 of those districts will use distance elementary schools.
Clarification: Information in this article regarding athletics and academic support has been updated in response to revisions St. Paul Public Schools made following its initial announcement Friday.