The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District has begun to issue Google Chromebooks to all students for the new school year, which began last Thursday.
Since 2019, when the district received a $1 million grant from T-Mobile, every student has had access to a Chromebook and an internet hotspot to supplement in-person classroom instruction.
Students used the devices for virtual learning during the latter half of the spring semester of 2020 as well as last school year when they took classes from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Chromebooks are being distributed again this year to supplement classroom instruction and to assist students if the district has to switch to virtual or hybrid instruction, Dr. Mary Brown, the superintendent, said in an email.
Brown said it is the district’s “hope to continue with in-person learning.”
Brown added that parents should register their children with their schools “to prevent any child from missing out on instruction and to increase the likelihood of the student's success in each subject and grade.”
Greenwood High is closed this week after five students tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
A total of 150 students and 17 teachers were quarantined, according a report from the Mississippi State Department of Health.
Dr. Paul Byers, the state’s epidemiologist, told reporters Wednesday during a Zoom conference that he expects the delta variant of COVID-19 to have a “significant impact” in the schools.
“You can see that we’ve already had, with just a couple of weeks in schools, 80 outbreaks” across the state, he said. “We anticipate that is going to increase in the coming weeks as transmission continues to occur.”
A person infected with the delta variant, which has been the leading cause in the surge of cases and hospitalizations in the state, can infect eight or nine people, Byers said; other variants of the disease may infect only three or four.
The best way to limit transmission is to get vaccinated and wear a mask, Byers added.
The Greenwood Leflore school district requires all students, faculty, staff and visitors to were masks. It does not require vaccinations but does encourage them.
Chromebooks have already been distributed at Greenwood High and Greenwood Middle schools.
The other days and times for Chromebook distribution are:
- Amanda Elzy High: 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday
- Bankston Elementary: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
- Claudine Brown Elementary: 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
- Davis Elementary: Parents of students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades can pick up their Chromebooks on Thursday. Parents of students from kindergarten through third grade can pick up their Chromebooks on Friday. No times were provided.
- East Elementary: 4 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
- Threadgill Elementary: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
Masks are required.
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
