Smyrna Elementary School will transition all students to distance-learning through Tuesday, Sept. 1, as many students and staff have been asked to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure.
Rutherford County Schools (RCS) reports approximately 53 students and eight teachers must go on a precautionary quarantine because they are either showing potential symptoms of COVID-19 or they are a close contact of someone who is showing symptoms.
“Our contact tracing has determined this is possibly caused by these students being in the same neighborhood or sharing a bus route,” states a message from James Evans, RCS Communications Director.
“We know this is going to be an inconvenience for some parents and that many of you likely have questions about logistics, laptop check-outs, and other issues. Vanessa Ritter, the principal of the school, will be issuing a follow-up message to all parents to discuss logistics and additional details.”
This is the second RCS school to transition to distance learning due to COVID-19.
In addition to Smyrna Elementary School, Christiana Middle School is on distance-learning through Friday and will reopen for in-person students on Monday, Aug. 24.
Parents should be aware of our notification procedures for COVID-19 situations:
- If there is a COVID-19 situation that affects a student, classroom, etc., those parents will be notified and kept informed.
- If there is a larger situation, such as school temporarily transitioned to a distance-learning environment because of a COVID-19 situation, we will alert all parents of that school and the media.
- If there is an even larger closing, such as a cluster of schools or the district as a whole, we will alert all affected parents and media so everyone has the same information.
