By Janie Shanafield, Jefferson Middle School
Jefferson Middle School FIRST Lego League teams hosted the 8th annual Atomic City Invitational on January 15. Area teams were invited to participate in the FIRST Lego League Cargo Connect challenge and alliance challenge, sumo bots, and Lego Great Ball Contraption. Fifteen area teams entered 45 robots into the events.
The winners were as follows:
[Read more…]Oak Ridge Schools has named its teachers of the year, teaching assistant of the year, and principal of the year.
The Teacher of the Year program recognizes and honors outstanding teachers in Tennessee, a press release said.
“The Tennessee Department of Education staff applauds teachers who care about children, who devote their professional lives to enriching the lives of Tennessee students, and who demonstrate exceptional gains in student achievement,” the press release said.
In Oak Ridge, teacher candidates are sought from each school in the district.
Here are the district-level winners, who were nominated by their peers. The information was written in the staff members’ own words and excerpted from their full applications. The narratives provide a window into each staff member’s authenticity and commitment to Oak Ridge students, the press release said.
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Oak Ridge Schools will not require face masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 after Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed an executive order Monday allowing parents to opt out of mask mandates issued by school or health boards. However, Oak Ridge Schools will continue to strongly recommend students wear masks in schools where there is an increase in confirmed COVID cases or evidence of the virus being transmitted in the building.
Before the governor’s order, Oak Ridge Schools had required masks at three schools: Jefferson Middle School, Robertsville Middle School, and Willow Brook Elementary School. Now, the use of masks is strongly encouraged in those schools but not required. All three schools have reported more than 20 COVID cases each.
The governor’s order allowed parents and guardians to use a written notification to opt out of mask mandates for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Some parents and government officials supported the order, while others, including doctors and parents, opposed it. School districts in Nashville and Shelby County said they will continue to require masks. That prompted a retort from Tennessee Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, an Oak Ridge Republican, who said that “the governor and the General Assembly cannot and will not allow lawful orders to be defied.”
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There have been more than 100 COVID-19 cases among students and staff members this school year, with most reporting mild symptoms, and a total of four staff hospitalizations reported since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Oak Ridge Schools said Monday.
There have been no student or staff fatalities since the pandemic began, the school system said.
Monday morning, there were more than 200 students who were restricted from attending school. There were 109 cases of COVID among students and staff members on Monday evening, mostly among students. The largest number of COVID-19 cases is now at Robertsville Middle School. Until Friday, it had been at Willow Brook Elementary School.
Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers said the source of exposure to COVID-19 varies.
“A high percentage of students are unable to identify the source of exposure, while others feel the source was a family member, family gathering, or friend,” Borchers said in a response to questions Monday.
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Face masks will be required at Jefferson and Robertsville middle schools starting Monday as they each reported at least seven new COVID-19 cases since Thursday, and 21 new cases were reported in all Oak Ridge schools, including among students and staff members. Eighty-one new cases have been reported in the past 1.5 weeks.
There are now three Oak Ridge schools that require face masks: Jefferson Middle School, Robertsville Middle School, and Willow Brook Elementary School. Willow Brook, which had the first outbreak of COVID-19 cases, required face masks starting this past Monday.
Willow Brook still has the largest number of cases: 27. Nineteen of those are current student cases, and one is a current staff case. Willow Brook reported four new cases between Thursday and Friday.
Robertsville has the second-largest number of cases: 24. Twenty of those are current student cases, and one is a current staff case. Robertsville reported seven new cases between Thursday and Friday.
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Sixty-nine cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Oak Ridge Schools this fiscal year. Sixty of those cases have been reported in the past eight days, since Wednesday, August 4. Two dozen cases were reported in the past two days. Students have been back in school about two weeks.
Three schools have had more than 10 cases each, and one, Willow Brook Elementary School, has had more than 20. Willow Brook is the only school where face masks are required.
The largest number of cases is at Willow Brook, where 23 COVID cases have been reported. Some are no longer considered current. Current cases include 16 student infections and two staff member infections.
Robertsville Middle School has had the second-highest number of cases with 17 total. Thirteen are current student cases, and one is a current staff case.
Jefferson Middle School has the third-largest number of cases with 11 total. Ten of those are current student cases.
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The number of COVID-19 cases quintupled in one week in Oak Ridge Schools. There were nine total cases in the schools on Wednesday, August 4. There were five times as many, 45, on Tuesday, August 10. Total cases include both current cases and recovered, and they include both student and staff cases.
Almost half of the school system’s total cases, 20, have been at Willow Brook Elementary School. Sixteen of those are considered current cases. Face masks are now required at Willow Brook. That change went into effect on Monday.
The next largest group of cases, 11, has been at Robertsville Middle School. Ten of those are current. No change in the face mask policy has been announced at Robertsville. With the exception of Willow Brook, face masks are optional in Oak Ridge Schools this school year after being required last year.
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Sixteen cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Oak Ridge Schools this school year. Fifteen of those cases are current, and one is recovered, according to the school system. The number of current cases appears to have about doubled in a few days, from eight to 15.
Almost half of the current cases, seven of them, are at Willow Brook Elementary School. Four of those cases are students, and three are staff members. That outbreak appears to have been reported in the past few days. A few days ago, there was one staff case reported at Willow Brook and no student cases.
Four cases of COVID-19 have been reported at Oak Ridge High School, all among students. Three of those are current, and one is recovered, Oak Ridge Schools said in a COVID-19 case dashboard posted on its website.
There are three current cases among students at Robertsville Middle School and two are among students at Jefferson Middle School.
[Read more…]A 10-year-old boy was hit by a vehicle near Jefferson Middle School on Thursday, the Oak Ridge Police Department said.
The collision was reported at about 2:48 p.m. Thursday, April 1, on Fairbanks Road north of Dayton Road near Jefferson Middle School.
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Thirty-six cases of COVID-19 have been reported among students and staff members in Oak Ridge Schools since Wednesday.
It’s a drastic increase in the number of cases reported among students and staff and triple the previous weekly high of 12. The highest number of cases in one day, 11, was reported Friday.
Fourteen of the COVID-19 cases since Wednesday have been reported at Robertsville Middle School (13 students and one staff member). Nine cases have been reported at Oak Ridge High School (all students), and seven have been reported at Jefferson Middle School (also all students).
During a longer period, the past 12 days, 47 cases have been reported in Oak Ridge Schools. During that time period, the highest numbers of cases have been reported at the two middle schools: 16 at RMS and 12 at JMS. The third-highest number of cases, 11, was reported at ORHS.
The increase in cases among middle school students, in particular, occurred after they returned to class five days per week on Monday, November 2. The most significant surge also started after Halloween. But it’s not clear if the events are connected. Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers has said about 80 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases have been exposed to the virus outside of school, according to information provided by parents.
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Oak Ridge Schools reported 11 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, a record high.
That’s almost as many cases reported in one day as has been reported in each of the previous two weeks. Twelve cases were reported in each of the last two weeks.
Twenty-three new cases have been reported since Wednesday, according to an Oak Ridge Today tally.
With the new cases, the school system has reported 56 cases of COVID-19 since October 21. The surge started after fall break, although it’s not clear if the two events are connected.
The new cases reported Friday included four students at Oak Ridge High School, three students at Jefferson Middle School, three students at Robertsville Middle School, and a staff member at Woodland Elementary School.
Recently, the most cases, 11, have been reported among Jefferson Middle School students. Those 11 cases were reported in nine days, since Thursday, November 5.
In that same time, the second-highest number of cases, nine, were reported among Robertsville Middle School students.
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The COVID-19 surge that started among students and staff members at Oak Ridge Schools three weeks ago continued in the school week that ended Tuesday, with the highest number of recent cases reported among Jefferson Middle School students.
There have been five COVID-19 cases reported among Jefferson Middle School students since Thursday. That’s close to half of the cases reported in Oak Ridge Schools in the past week.
There have been two student cases reported at Robertsville Middle School since Thursday and one student and one staff member case reported at Oak Ridge High School.
A total of 12 cases were reported among students and staff members in Oak Ridge Schools in the school week between last Wednesday and this Tuesday. That matched the total of 12 cases in the previous week. There were nine cases the week before. That’s a total of 33 cases in the past three weeks, or 11 per week on average.
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