Late on Wednesday, Haddonfield Superintendent Chuck Klaus issued another communication to the community, regarding the state of education in the district in light of a continued rise in confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, both in the borough and county wide.
“The Camden County Department of Health has communicated to us that our COVID Activity Level Index (CALI) score falls into the category of “High Risk,” which is indicated by a CALI score of 3. Additional information was provided pointing out that Camden County ranks near the highest Case Rate and Percent Positivity in the state. The New Jersey Department of Health has asked school districts to consider additional precautions while faced with so many new cases in our area (COVID-19 Regional Risk Matrix).
“With an expected surge after the Thanksgiving weekend and with an emphasis on the safety and wellbeing of our students, staff, and families, the decision has been made to take a cautious approach and create an “intermediate” period of time in which to evaluate the impact of the holiday weekend. Therefore, beginning Monday, November 30, 2020, Haddonfield School District will return to full remote instruction until December 7, 2020.
“This applies to elementary, middle and high school students. A review of the district and regional numbers will be made on December 3, 2020, and the status of our instructional model will be re-evaluated at that time. Based on those numbers, we will decide either to continue full remote learning or to return to the hybrid model. If the decision is made to extend full remote learning, considerations of best practices to support at-risk students will be implemented.
“The decision to take this intermediate step was not made lightly, but it was made with the hope that we can bring the students back to school later in December.
“We understand and value the impact of in-person instruction. Over the next several weeks, we ask everyone to participate in behavior that is safe and includes practices to stop the spread of COVID-19. It is our hope that the regional numbers decline and return to in-person instruction occurs as quickly as possible.”
The move for all educational levels follows on the heels of Klaus’ decision earlier in the month, to put Haddonfield Memorial High School on all-virtual learning through Nov. 30. That change was due to a number of factors, chief among them a sharp rise in the number of cases in the high-school-aged population, along with a number of students who chose to disengage from hybrid learning to all virtual, as well as a number of teachers who had to quarantine which made staffing HMHS difficult.