Toms River Schools To Go Remote Amid Coronavirus Spike In County

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The surging coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have forced the Toms River Regional School District to shift back to remote instruction temporarily, the district announced Monday.

All students, including those attending programs in the Ocean County Vocational Technical Schools, will be fully remote beginning Tuesday, Superintendent David Healy said in a letter distributed to the district and posted on the district's website.

The plan is to return the hybrid instruction (which Toms River calls blended) beginning Dec. 14 for students, including those attending part-day programs at the vocational schools.

Students who attend the vocational school academies — the Marine Academy of Technical and Environmental Sciences (MATES), the Performing Arts Academy and the Academy of Law and Public Safety — are scheduled to return Dec. 8, he said.

The district had just shifted its intermediate and high school students to their first in-person classes on Nov. 9, the last group of students to return to the school buildings.

"It's been our intention and the goal of our schools to remain open, especially after having successfully completed our #TRSafeReturn," Healy said. But officials with the Ocean County Health Department urged the district to shift back to remote, at least for now.

Ocean County has moved to "high risk" on the state's COVID-19 Regional Risk Matrix, and surpassed 20,000 cases; there are 20,300, up 1,679 from the 18,621 on Nov. 21. Toms River has almost 300 new cases in that time, from 2,911 on Nov. 21 to 3,209 as of Monday morning, according to the Ocean County Health Department.

The plan to return on Dec. 14 "is of course dependent on a downward trend in the number of local positive cases and additional guidance and/or directives from OCHD," Healy said.

"I want to reiterate that this was not a course of action we wanted to take," Healy said, "and I also want to reassure all of you that this decision is being made despite our relentless, collective efforts to adhere to protocols and thus ensure the safety of our students and staff. This is not an indictment of those efforts; in fact, all reports and data suggest that our schools have done an extraordinary job of preventing outbreaks, a sentiment recently echoed by OCHD."

"Unfortunately, this is a necessary response to a much broader problem," he said.

Neighboring Manchester moved to remote learning for Thanksgiving week, with the intent of returning to in-person classes on Nov. 30, but had to postpone plans to expand in-person instruction. Brick Township High School was shifted to remote instruction starting Tuesday, and that district also postponed expanding their in-person instructional days.

Toms River school district families are urged to keep notifying their children's principals of any positive cases. "This information is integral toward our planning for the immediate future, as well as the continued safety of our students and staff," Healy said.

This article has been updated to clarify that OCVTS academies students will return Dec. 8.

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