MACON, Ga. — In Thursday night's board meeting, Bibb County Schools decided on a plan to have staff return back to schools on February 11th and for students to return on the 18th.
Jill Thomley has five kids enrolled in the district and she says virtual learning has been slightly difficult.
"Wow, virtual learning is...I don't know how the teachers are doing it, and I don't know how parents with more than one child are doing it," Thomley said.
Thomley has a preschooler, third-, fifth-, eighth-, and tenth-graders all enrolled in Bibb County schools.
She says her kids are slowly but surely catching on to learning virtually, but ultimately, she just wants them to be back in the classroom.
"I think the discouraging part is that there's no clear idea of what the metrics are for them to tell us when the kids get to go back to school," Thomley said.
Superintendent Curtis Jones says the board put a lot of thought into just that, even as we see some of the highest numbers yet during the pandemic.
"And there was also information we prepared for the board to look at, which included information from the North Central Health District, what the community spread is, how many hospital beds are available, and things of that nature," Jones said.
Thomley says even though she wants schools to reopen, she can't imagine the difficult position that Jones is in.
"I know it's hard. I know he's having to make decisions for a lot of people, and for people who are experiencing this on a whole different level," Thomley said.
"I've heard many parents say they want their students back in school. We're going to do what we can to make that happen, but again, it depends on what we as a community do. If the numbers stay up, we won't be able to come back. If they go down, we have a greater chance of doing that," Jones said.
These return dates are flexible based on community spread of COVID-19.