Warren County School Board will be discussing a back-to-school plan for 2021-22 on Monday, June 28. That discussion will include COVID protocols. 

“We finished off the year strong,” said Director of Schools Grant Swallows, referring to 2020-21. “We will be discussing at the June board meeting, extensively, some of the protocols that we will have in place next year.”

School Board members voted during their May session to remove a mask mandate for students in the summer school program. Instead of being required, mask wearing for summer school  is optional. 

“I think this will be a really good test to see how our students respond,” said Swallows. “At the June board meeting we will be discussing a back-to-school plan, for lack of a better term. You have a hard time planning two months in advance when it comes to COVID.”

Along with an attempt to plan ahead, Swallows says the school system will continue to monitor the number of cases reported, look for any hot spots within schools, and make real-time decisions.

“Virtual learning or distance learning will not be an option next year, unless we have our own school,” said Swallows. “We have submitted an application for that to the Tennessee Department of Education. That will help dictate some of our back-to-school planning as we go forward. We are cautiously optimistic, as everyone is right now, as we return to a little bit of normalcy. Again, we just need to take that as we go.”

Gov. Bill Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly are eager to get students back in classrooms and greatly reduce virtual learning, which is viewed as less effective than classroom learning.

Swallows was asked to provide a “COVID update” by members of the county Education Committee.