By Jared Putnam
Staff Writer
With the 2021-22 academic year set to start on Monday, Clay County Schools will feature a number of changes inside and outside of its buildings.
In addition to the potential for evolving COVID-19 protocols, the school system will also feature a temporary traffic pattern change due to the repaving of the bus parking lot and the area where the old elementary school once stood. The project broke ground in July but is behind schedule due to the amount of rainfall the area has received in recent weeks. It will not be ready for use until two to three weeks after students return to school.
In the meantime, the school system will implement an alternative traffic pattern.
"This project will fix the crumbling bus lot that was damaging our buses on a regular basis while also providing a new staff parking lot for our elementary school teachers that was desperately needed," the school system said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
"It is critical that all our parents and other adults that pick up or drop off students follow this traffic pattern every day. If you have any questions about where you should drive after reading this article and looking at the map, please contact your principal."
A map legend is also available at the top of the school system's Facebook page.
Meanwhile, visitors inside Clay County Schools will be limited, restricted to the office areas and required to wear face masks at all times while in the building. Spectators at sporting and other extracurricular events are not required to wear masks and athletes are not required to wear them while actively participating. However, athletes are required to wear them on the sidelines following "an adequate amount of time" to catch their breath and drink fluids.
"As always, the safety of our staff and students is our first priority in all areas of our district," Superintendent Dale Cole said. "Our goal is to have the maximum amount of face-to-face instruction five days per week for all students, and we will align our procedures to that goal and the data reported by our school nurses and the Clay County Health Department each week and month. We will also be disinfecting the entire district twice per week and the gym after each home game."
Masks are also mandatory on all yellow and activity buses, as required by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
The Clay County Board of Education was scheduled to come together for a special called meeting Wednesday to revisit the possibility of a face mask mandate for staff and students inside of buildings. The board voted to make masks optional during its monthly meeting on July 26, following Cole's recommendation. However, the superintendent left the door open to alter that decision if circumstances changed.
"The board can and should elect at any time to change its decision to make the schools safer in reaction to COVID spread as needed," Cole said at the time.
Clay County had only 10 known active positive cases of COVID-19 at the time of that meeting. As of Monday, that number had risen to at least 64 cases. Area hospitals such as Union General Hospital in Blairsville, Ga., are currently stretched well beyond their normal capacity largely due to a record number of COVID-19 inpatients.
