Students In Metro Nashville Public Schools Will Start The New Year Virtually

Metro Nashville Public School will continue all-virtual learning at the start of the second semester, a spokesman announced Monday afternoon. 

The plan is to continue remote learning at least through the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. But with the pandemic worsening in Nashville and across Tennessee, district officials say it’s hard to know when classrooms will reopen.

“It’s unknown where we’ll be in February and March, or beyond. So as a school district, we’re readying ourselves,” Adrienne Battle, the director of Metro Schools, tells WPLN News. “We’re prepared, for when our local context allows for our students to be welcomed back into our buildings, that we can do that.”

It’s been a rough first semester for families at Metro Nashville Public Schools. The district started the school year with a plan to slowly phase-in students after Labor Day, but that was halted after a rise COVID-19 cases. 

Battle says she’s hopeful that students will be back in classrooms by the end of the school year, but that buildings won’t reopen until it’s safe to do so. There is a possibility, though, that students won’t return to physical classrooms until next August.

Earlier this month, North Nashville charter school Purpose Prep became one of the first in the state to announce that they won’t reopen for in-person classes this school year.

Tennessee health officials recorded the state’s highest number of daily COVID cases last week. The state has been recording nearly 10,000 new cases per day. Tennessee reported 100 deaths in a day for the first time last week. Active hospitalizations are also up.