DCSS announces teacher diagnosed with COVID-19 2 days after classrooms reopen

ALBANY, Ga. – After reaching a COVID-19 milestone, Dougherty County Schools are back open. School system officials planned on waiting until the COVID-19 positivity rate in the community was at or below 5% before inviting students back into the classroom for in-person instruction. Local Health officials announced last week that Dougherty County reached that bench mark. And Monday, Dougherty County students packed their backpacks, masked their faces and headed to the classrooms.

“Even if things are a little different than they are used to just being able to see their friends, see their classmates and their teachers and other people at the school has been met with a lot of joy and excitement,” says Dougherty County School System Superintendent Kenneth Dyer.

Like other schools that are open during this global pandemic, DCSS classrooms are equipped with CDC recommended protections: Spaced out desks fitted with shields, hand sanitizer and all students are required to wear masks or face shields.

“We have a lot of safety protocols in place and I walked through four of our schools and I’m quite pleased with what I’ve seen the first two days.”

And although Dyer says schools are following recommended protocol, he says one teacher has already been diagnosed with COVID-19.

“We certainly didn’t want to have our first case on the first day but our principal and our staff handled that case according to our protocol and we couldn’t have asked for a better result.”

Dyer says the teacher is doing well and their classroom has been sanitized. Moving forward, Dougherty County officials say that they will have COVID-19 information readily available to the public throughout the school year.

“We intend to use a public dashboard on our website that will be updated every friday to keep the public informed of our cases of students and employees and how many students or employees may be quarantined at any given time. Parents will also be notified of cases at their students school and/or in their students classroom,” says LaKisha Bruce, DCSS Director of Community Relations.