More special education students are returning to classrooms in Barrow County this morning: all students are due back on Barrow County campuses on September 8. Barrow County began its new school year with on-line instruction only because of concerns about coronavirus.

Students in schools in Hall County, after beginning the new school year with on-line learning, are returning to classrooms, and coronavirus testing sites have been set up outside some of the schools in the Hall County School District.

From WSB TV…

Channel 2′s Tom Regan learned that 60 students and staff got tested on Thursday and the group expects to get results on Monday.

The school district’s main goal is to test children who don’t show symptoms to get a better idea of how the virus is spreading in school.

“We felt like if we could identify individuals who are asymptomatic and positive, as well as pockets of community spread, we would be able to minimize spread in our buildings,” Hall County spokesman Stan Lewis said.

Testing is free and voluntary for staff, their families and students with permission from their parents. So far testing has taken place at Cherokee Bluff and East Hall high schools. No tests at East Hall came back positive, Lewis said.

Everyone entering Hall County schools are temperature checked and masks are required where social distancing isn’t possible, including classrooms and hallways.

“What we are trying to do is keep people safe and minimize spread and minimize sending folks home to quarantine,” Lewis said.

Hall County schools have averaged about 20 to 25 individuals absent with a positive test each day, a small fraction of the 30,000 students and staff members.

Hall County’s superintendent asked the Northeast Georgia Health System to implement the testing program.

Schools are being selected at random for the pop-up tests.

Cox Media Group