UPDATE: Henrico Schools remain on track for in-person reopening

Despite significant increases in the number of COVID-19 cases in Henrico recently, Henrico Schools officials appear confident in their plans to proceed with the resumption of in-person learning beginning Nov. 30.

The school system won’t consider backing off those plans unless two of the core indicators established by the Virginia Department of Health – the number of new cases per 100,000 people during a moving 14-day period, and the percent-positivity rate of PCR tests during the same period – are simultaneously in the "higher risk" or “highest risk” category, HCPS Chief of Staff Beth Teigen told the Henrico School Board during its Thursday afternoon work session.

Currently, only the former has reached one of those levels (“highest risk,” at 212.6 cases per 100,000), while the latter is in the “moderate risk” category, at 5.7%. The next category up – beginning at 8% positivity – would be considered “higher risk.”

Teigen, a member of the school system’s health committee, said that if both indicators entered the higher or highest risk categories together, the committee would meet immediately to review data and check outbreaks in the county to determine if any at long-term care facilities or other primarily-isolated locations were skewing the data.

The committee also would evaluate whether any spread of the virus is occurring within Henrico’s schools. HCPS School Health Services Supervisor Robin Gilbert told the board that none of the 67 cases identified within 42 Henrico schools to date have occurred through spread inside those schools.

The board voted Oct. 22 to adopt a four-phase return to in-person learning for those students and families who choose it, beginning with pre-kindergarten through second-grade students Nov. 30; third through fifth-grade students Dec. 7; sixth and ninth-graders Feb. 1 and 2; and then all other secondary students that same week.

Families had until Nov. 8 to let their schools know whether they’d be coming back or continuing in virtual mode for the rest of the school year. School officials have spent this week following up with the thousands who did not reply by that time.

* * *

Our journalism is free to read, but it’s not free for us to produce. It requires time, research and analysis to provide fair, comprehensive, meaningful coverage of issues that matter to Henrico County. If you value education reporting like this, please consider a tax-deductible contribution to our Education Fund, made possible through a partnership with Facebook and the Local Media Foundation.