See below and/or click here for a slew of information on “school divisions’ operating status for the 2020-2021 school year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic” from the Virginia Department of Education.
As you can see, currently (following Gov. Northam’s 2/5 call for school divisions to safely return students to the classroom statewide) only three school divisions (out of 132) are in the “Fully Remote-b” category, in which learning is fully remote and the school division is NOT “seeking approval to increase the number of students learning in person.” At the other end of the spectrum, 19 school divisions – mostly in SW Virginia – are all in-person and 48 divisions are “partial in-person.” Also, at present, 29 divisions are “all hybrid”; 11 divisions are “partial hybrid” and 22 divisions are fully remote but are “seeking approval to increase the number of students learning in person.”
You can compare the current statistics to December 14, at the peak of the COVID-19 surge, when a whopping 52 divisions were fully remote and only 9 divisions in-person. You can also see how this has played out in each school division. Clearly, school divisions have been looking at the COVID-19 numbers and many have been reacting accordingly. Presumably, they’re now also responding to the increasing numbers of vaccinations of school staff, as well as the sharply declining number of new COVID cases and hospitalizations. So now, let’s get everyone vaccinated and get kids back to school…where they belong and where most of them learn best!