Coronavirus Forces All Concord Schools To Remote Learning: Update

CONCORD, NH — Nearly all of Concord School District students will be moved to remote learning this week, according to Kathleen Murphy, the district's interim school superintendent.

The decision was made Tuesday to move the remaining schools in the SAU 8 district to remote learning due to the number of quarantined teachers, administrators, and students, and the lack of education staffing to teach children in the classroom, she said. Broken Ground Elementary School will move to remote learning on Wednesday while Christa McAuliffe Elementary School will change learning models Thursday. Concord Regional Technical Center students will also move to remote Thursday.

All winter athletics will also be put on pause beginning Tuesday through Jan. 4. At that time, the decision will be reevaluated, Murphy said.

"Instruction will be delivered using the remote model employed in the fall; four days of synchronous teaching per week," she said.

Remote learning will be in place until mid-to-late January.

The remote learning plan also includes special education students and English language learners, students that the state told school districts they had to ensure were not falling through the cracks. This decision, too, was a difficult one for Murphy to make, she said.

"I'm still trying to get kids in," she said. "It's really based on if I have the staff resources. In some schools, it's working; in other schools, it's difficult."

The district received more confirmed coronavirus infection information Tuesday including two students at the Mill Brook Primary School, in Grade 2, Cohort A, who was last in school Dec. 7, and Grade 1, Cohort B, who was last in school Dec. 8. A Mill Brook bus driver who last drove students on Dec. 7 was also infected. Two CRTC students were confirmed positive, too, and they were last at school on Dec. 11. Two Concord High School students and a staffer were also infected. The students were in Grade 10, Cohort A, and was last in school Dec. 7, and Grade 12, full-time, was last in school Dec. 8. The staffer was last in school also on Dec. 8.

The district believes that nearly all the coronavirus positive cases contracted the virus outside of the school setting, she said.

According to the state's data dashboard, the district has only four cases connected to the school setting. Twenty-eight cases have recovered from the virus.

Concord reported 376 active cases on Monday — the most since the pandemic started. While still less than 1 percent of the city's population, infections have grown significantly. Three weeks ago, there were 93 cases. On Nov. 4, there were 54 positive test results in Concord.

About a third of the 376 cases are in the New Hampshire State Prison for Men. Many others are in long-term care facilities and other institutions in the city. But the spread is also in the general population, too.

More than 1,100 people have become infected in Concord since the pandemic started on March 1.

"We hope that the guidelines provided by CDC and New Hampshire Health and Human Services will serve as a reminder as we deal with the increasing rate of COVID-19 infections," Murphy said. "The district’s hope is to return to hybrid instruction on Jan. 19."

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