As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to swell in Mississippi and across the country, the Forrest County School District is considering employing the hybrid model of instruction once students return from the winter holiday break.
Superintendent Brian Freeman said following the district’s December board regular monthly meeting Dec. 14 that he would meet later in the week with other school district officials and campus administrators and teachers about the move.
With the support of both district and state funding, every student in the district has access to a Chrome laptop computer to use for receiving instruction and completion of assignments.
While students and faculty are able to socially distance while also masking in the classroom, challenges continue with distancing on school buses, despite the district’s best efforts to tinker with schedules and additional routes. Freeman said the district’s decision on hybrid instruction for the start of 2021 would be communicated as soon as possible with parents and students.
As for athletics, North Forrest High School’s basketball season has been most recently affected by the uptick in cases, with games canceled or postponed for the remainder of December. Other area schools have also had to postpone games and other extracurricular events.
In looking back on 2020, Freeman said he believes the district put a good plan in place to deal with the effects of the virus on instruction and attendance, but he would have liked to have had a stronger online presence at the outset of the pandemic. Technology infrastructure, however, has improved over the course of the year.
“I’m proud of the way our people have handled the situation, even as we face a variety of changing circumstances,” he said. “We’ve just had to manage this day to day.”
