The ongoing dispute between the Board of Education and the Board of Commissioners took a dramatic turn on Monday with the remotely connected, but live streamed, meeting of the Board of Education.
After allowing Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell to speak for six minutes as a registered outside speaker, the School Board, led by Board Member Tim Burgess, spent 29 minutes responding critically.
Clarke County added four new COVID-19 cases on Monday, Oconee County added three, and Barrow County added nine, contributing to an increase of 24 cases over a day earlier in the Northeast Health District of the Department of Public Health.
The increase of 24 is lower than the 36 cases added on Tuesday of last week but higher than the 13 cases added on Monday. Only Morgan and Elbert counties in the 10-county district did not add cases.
Last week’s virtual Board of Commissioners Town Hall meeting was billed as focusing on two topics, the 2021 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum being planned for the Nov. 3 ballot and roadway improvements on Malcom Bridge Road.
The commissioners, as is usual, also took questions from the audience.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported 13 new cases of confirmed COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District in its noon Daily Status Report on Monday, up from the count of 11 added on Sunday and the same number of cases it added on Monday a week ago.
The Daily Status report numbers vary by day of the week, and in each of the last three days–Saturday, Sunday and Monday–the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases was the same as the number on that day a week ago.
Claire Buck, chief academic officer for Oconee County Schools, told Board of Education members last Monday that the closure of the county schools on March 16 did not catch administrators and teachers without a plan.
In the first remote, live streamed meeting held by the Board, Buck said that the school system starting making changes to its Plan for Continuity of Learning In The Event of Inclement Weather on March 13 and was prepared when the schools moved to digital learning on March 16 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Oconee and Clarke counties each add two new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the noon Daily Status Report released Sunday by the Georgia Department of Public Health, contributing to the 11 new cases added in the 10-county Northeast Health District.
The 11 new cases are the same number as the Northeast Health District added a week ago–on Easter Sunday–and are an increase over the seven new cases added in the noon Daily Status Report on Saturday.
The Northeast Health District, which includes Oconee and Clarke counties, added only seven new confirmed cases of COVID-19 with the noon Daily Status Report of the Georgia Department of Public Health on Saturday.
The seven cases compare with the 38 added on Friday and the 37 added on Thursday.
