A Small Georgia City Plans to Put Students in Classrooms This Week

[brooklynite]

New York Times

JEFFERSON, Ga. — When Jennifer Fogle and her family moved from Indiana to Georgia 13 years ago, they settled in Jefferson, a small, handsome city an hour’s drive from Atlanta, because they had heard about the excellent schools. And until recently, they had little to complain about. The teachers are passionate and committed, and the facilities rival those found at some private schools.

But in recent days Ms. Fogle found herself uncharacteristically anxious, after learning that Jefferson City Schools planned to offer face-to-face instruction in the midst of a resurgent coronavirus pandemic that has seen thousands of new cases reported daily in Georgia.

As other districts around the state delayed their back-to-school days or moved to all-remote learning, Jefferson school officials announced that they were sticking with their Friday start date, one of the earliest in the nation. And while school officials said they would “strongly encourage” masks for students and teachers, they stopped short of making masks mandatory.

Ms. Fogle, 46, a stay-at-home mother, thinks these decisions are unwise. But after weighing her options, including online education promoted by the district but taught by a private company or the state, she decided it best to let her two teenage children embrace the risks and physically attend Jefferson High School. It seemed futile, she said, to go against the grain in a heavily pro-Trump community where many see masks as an infringement of their personal freedom — and in a state where the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, has been urging districts to reopen their classrooms despite the pandemic’s growing toll.

[CottonBear]

1. Jeffferson, GA is the county seat of Jackson County,

which is a majority white (i.e. Republican, redneck, conservative Christian) county, infamous in Northeast Georgia for its flea markets, speed traps, pit bull breeding, illegal cock fights, bootlegging and car parts stripping rackets, among other things.

Jackson County has a county school district, however, Jefferson has its own city school system, which is unusual in Northeast Georgia.

The Jefferson City schools were the only public schools in the county until the population increased to the point that a separate county school district was created. The population of Jefferson, GA has increased significantly in recent decades. White people move there “for the schools”, which is a code for moving to a majority white school system.

Many of the parents and families in Jefferson and Jackson County, work, shop and access health care in my county, so they’ll be spreading COVID19 here and into other surrounding counties.

Fortunately, the school district in my Georgia county is going to have all K-12 school online, issue digital devices and set up WiFi hotspots. School will start September 8, 2020. There is no way that I would send my child into a school. I have been isolating them since mid-March.

I predict that the Jefferson City School System will have significant COVID19 outbreaks. I hope that no one dies before they have to shut down the schools.

[Laelth]

2. Are you in Hall County?

Sounds like it.

I bet that the Jefferson City Schools don’t stay open for long.

-Laelth

[Mr. Ected]

3. No, Hall County will be putting little lives at risk very soon

I'm guessing Athens-Clarke County.

[Laelth]

4. That would make sense.

I didn’t know Hall was planning to reopen. Sigh.

-Laelth

[CottonBear]

8. Is Hall opening in-person school?

I was going to enroll my child in a public, online charter school if our school district planned to have in-person school.

[CottonBear]

6. I'm in Clarke County. N/T

[dawg]

5. Jackson County isn't any more "infamous" than most of its neighboring counties.

You make it sound like it's an outlier, but it isn't. It's a fairly typical Northeast Georgia county. If anything, it's slightly better than some others due to its proximity to metro Atlanta.

[CottonBear]

7. It has become less of an outlier as it has suburbanized. N/T