5th graders at Georgia school are sent home due to COVID-19

(CNN) — Fifth graders astatine 1 suburban Atlanta simple schoolhouse were sent location Wednesday for virtual learning owed to precocious numbers of affirmative Covid-19 cases, according to a schoolhouse territory email sent to parents and obtained by CNN.

“This morning, based connected our territory protocols and astatine the guidance of the Department of Public Health successful coordination with territory leaders, we’ve had to marque the hard determination to person our 5th-grade classes determination to virtual learning owed to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and precocious affirmative lawsuit numbers,” the email from East Side Elementary reads.

According to the email, students volition statesman virtual learning connected Thursday, August 12, and proceed until August 20. Students tin instrumentality to in-person learning connected Monday, August 23, according to the email.

East Side Elementary is successful Cobb County, Georgia. CNN has reached retired to Cobb County Schools for comment.

Also connected Wednesday, Clayton County Public Schools confirmed that arsenic a precaution, unit and students astatine Kemp Primary School successful Hampton, Georgia, astir 30 miles southbound of Atlanta, volition “operate successful a virtual learning situation for the remainder of the week,” owed to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The schoolhouse territory volition proceed to marque decisions based connected the champion involvement of each students and employees portion monitoring ongoing matters comparative to the pandemic,” according to the quality release.

The statement astir however schools should grip Covid-19 protocols has been a divisive contented crossed the country. School districts, parents, wellness departments and authorities officials are grappling with however to instrumentality students to classrooms safely astatine a clip erstwhile the Delta variant is driving a surge in cases across the state and portion younger students are inactive incapable to beryllium vaccinated.

In Cobb County, masks are optional for students and staff, per the district’s website, but there is societal distancing successful classrooms erstwhile possible.

Some parents person expressed interest implicit the district’s deficiency of disguise mandate and connected Thursday, they’re expected to protestation astatine the Cobb School District’s central bureau successful Marietta demanding that the territory instrumentality a disguise mandate.

The largest schoolhouse territory successful Georgia, Gwinnett County Public Schools, changed its disguise argumentation from optional to required for students, staff, visitors and connected schoolhouse buses erstwhile schoolhouse starts, careless of vaccination status.

“This determination takes into relationship existent conditions, the emergence successful COVID-19 lawsuit rates successful Gwinnett County, and the ineligibility of children property 12 and younger for the vaccine,” a connection from the schoolhouse territory said.

Atlanta Public Schools require masks for each students and teachers, on with different prevention strategies similar carnal distancing erstwhile feasible, as do Dekalb County Schools.

Fulton County Schools, wherever students started August 9, necessitate masks successful schools wherever the surrounding community’s complaint of corruption exceeds 100 per 100,000 residents, which nationalist wellness officials see “high assemblage spread.”

The piecemeal attack has been frustrating for parents passim Georgia, wherever Gov. Brian Kemp declined to contented authorities guidance but signed an enforcement bid restricting schools from utilizing the state’s nationalist wellness exigency arsenic a crushed for their decisions.