GCS COVID Update August 19, 2021
Dear Parents & Staff,
The Gilmer County Schools have seen an explosion of positive cases and quarantines throughout this week. In fact, our high school athletic programs have been affected to the point that we have been forced to cancel tomorrow's football game against Pickens County. Our quarantine information will be updated on our website Friday afternoon, but I can tell you that we currently sit district-wide at over 900 students in quarantine and over 100 positive cases among students and staff.
On Monday, GCS will begin masking on school buses only. Although we do not require masks in our buildings or events, we do strongly encourage students and staff to consider both masking and vaccination as an option. Students and staff who are fully vaccinated or masked during exposure will not be subject to quarantine.
We have made every effort to be both transparent and communicative in our Covid response planning. In that spirit, I would like to announce that we have just today received yet another set of updated guidance from the Department of Public Health. This updated guidance has significant changes that we hope will help us get our students get back into classrooms while keeping them as safe as possible. Our team will be working on the logistics of implementing this new guidance as early as Monday or Tuesday of next week.
Regardless of how you chose to mitigate exposure for your family, please be safe.
Thank you,
Dr. Brian Ridley
Superintendent,
Gilmer County Schools