Oak Ridge Schools and Anderson County Health Department will have a vaccine clinic for students 12 and older in June.
The vaccine clinic will be in Wildcat Arena at Oak Ridge High School on June 4 and 25. It will feature the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, with the first shot on Friday, June 4, and the second on Friday, June 25. People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose.
The vaccine clinic will begin at 9 a.m. both days.
[Read more…]Mask use will continue in Oak Ridge Schools through the end of the school year, May 28, but will be optional for summer school.
Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers recommended the change during a special meeting Monday evening. The Oak Ridge Board of Education approved it unanimously.
Masks have been required in Oak Ridge Schools to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Students can take off their masks outside. Visitors will be allowed starting in school in July.
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Pictured above is a 2020 grant ceremony for Oak Ridge High School Spanish teacher Abigail Hoshall, “Improving Language Reading Comprehension Skills Through Engagement.” (Submitted photo)
The Oak Ridge Public Schools Education Foundation awarded more than $101,000 in grants to Oak Ridge teachers on Wednesday, during teacher appreciation week.
“Regrettably, due to COVID-19 concerns, there will not be an awards ceremony again this year,” a press release said.
However, the Education Foundation partnered with Oak Ridge Utility District and Millborne Bakery to deliver cookies for all staff in each school during Teacher Appreciation Week. The Foundation said it wants to honor and recognize the 2021 grant recipients in Oak Ridge Schools as follows: [Read more…]
A presentation in Oak Ridge this evening will feature Ernestine Avery, one of the 85 African American students who integrated Oak Ridge Schools in 1955, a press release said.
Avery was one of the 85 students who had attended Scarboro schools before integrating Oak Ridge Schools in 1955.
The presentation will begin on Zoom at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 27. This will be during the monthly general meeting of the Oak Ridge-Anderson County NAACP Branch, the press release said.
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More than 100 COVID-19 cases have been reported among students and staff members in Oak Ridge Schools since the school year began July 29.
An Oak Ridge Today tally shows 117 total cases, while an Oak Ridge Schools dashboard shows 115.
Most of the cases, 94, have been reported among students, while 21 have been reported among staff members, according to the school system’s dashboard.
The Oak Ridge Schools dashboard, which was last updated Tuesday, showed 65 recovered cases of COVID-19 and 50 current. The school system does not report information about the outcomes of individual cases, but as of mid-November, all confirmed cases were reported to have been relatively mild.
The number of new COVID-19 cases reported by Oak Ridge Schools dropped significantly last week, but the number of new cases reported among staff members increased.
[Read more…]This Monday and Tuesday (November 23 and 24) are virtual learning days for K-12 students in Oak Ridge Schools.
Teachers are providing instruction from their classrooms to students, who are learning remotely from home. Building principals were expected to share details with families.
In a letter to families, Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers said elementary school students now have electronic devices and can use this opportunity to participate in true virtual learning.
Preschool students are continuing with their current schedule this week and are meeting in person on Monday, November 23, and Tuesday, November 24.
[Read more…]In a letter last week, Oak Ridge Schools officials asked people to wear masks, maintain physical distances from people who live outside their home, and wash their hands.
There has been a recent surge in COVID-19 cases among students and staff members in Oak Ridge Schools. The surge began after fall break, although it’s not clear if the two events are connected.
On Monday, the school system returned middle school students to alternating schedules as the number of students who have to be quarantined increases. High school students remain on the alternating schedules, and elementary and preschool students continue with classes five days per week.
In their letter, school officials said they were asking the community to do what the students and teachers are doing to stay healthy in order to maintain and increase educational and extracurricular activities.
“Wear your mask, social distance, wash your hands, and understand that activities you participate in outside of the school day can easily jeopardize our ability to continue in-person education,” the letter said.
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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.
[Read more…]Starting Monday, middle school students who attend classes in person will return to the alternating schedules used earlier this year, Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers said in a letter to families and staff members on Friday.
The transition back to alternating schedules is due to an increase in the number of students being quarantined, Borchers said. Quarantined students cannot attend school at all for face-to-face instruction, he said.
“We realized that bringing all middle school students together had the potential to increase the number of students we would be sending home to quarantine when a single peer tests positive for COVID-19,” Borchers said. “Due to the increase in the number of students being quarantined, it is our plan to transition back to the alternating A/B schedule effective Monday, November 16, 2020.”
Most students at the middle schools and high school had started the school year with staggered schedules. A minority of students selected an online-only option.
Using the staggered schedules, some students have attended classes on Mondays and Thursdays, and others have attended on Tuesdays and Fridays. Students have then had online classes the other three days.
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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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The number of new COVID-19 cases reported among students and staff members surged in Oak Ridge Schools during the past three weeks.
There have been 27 cases reported since October 15. That’s an average of nine new cases per week during a three-week period.
It’s about triple the average number of new cases reported during the previous high period in August, when roughly 3.3 new cases were reported per week during a three-week period.
The increase in new cases in the school system has occurred as the number of new cases has also risen significantly in Anderson County and Tennessee, surpassing the July peak.
The 27 cases reported in the past three weeks in Oak Ridge Schools represents about 57 percent of the total 47 cases reported since the school year started July 29.
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