Tuscaloosa City Schools Amends Schedule For First Week In January

Tuscaloosa AL

11 December, 2020

12:32 PM

Description

TUSCALOOSA, AL. — Tuscaloosa City Schools on Friday announced changes to its school calendar for its first week of January 2021 as classes are now set to resume Tuesday, Jan. 5 The new staggered schedule will see one group of students attend in-person instruction two days in the first week (Tuesday and Wednesday), with the other cohort of students also receiving in-person instruction two days during the week (Thursday and Friday). Click here to subscribe to our daily email newsletters and breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox and mobile devices for free. You can also support local journalism by donating as little as $5 a month to become a supporting member or by downloading our free Patch mobile app. Following the first week of classes, the schedule will then shift to Monday/Tuesday for one group and Wednesday/Thursday for the other, with Fridays throughout January being set aside for cleaning days at the schools. The changes come as the system is still working to overcome impacts felt by the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, TCS reported 58 students testing positive for the virus and 792 students in isolation due to testing positive or coming into contact with a positive case. Impacts to staff also prompted the district to shift to a virtual only format for the last week of the fall semester. Students are tentatively set to return to in-person instruction on Jan. 19 and TCS says there will be no virtual instruction for TCS students on Jan. 8. The school system then said in order to provide students as much instructional time as possible, the decision was made to ensure that all students are scheduled to attend equal amounts of time the first week. Superintendent Mike Daria also apologized for any confusion caused by the changes. "While I know this update is different from what we published on Wednesday, I believe it is in the best interest of student learning, especially during the pandemic," he said. Follow Patch here for updates or on Facebook and Twitter. You can also download the Patch mobile app, free for Apple and Android mobile devices.