The number of school districts closing in Arkansas is decreasing, said Dr. Ivy Pfeffer, deputy commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education.
Forty-nine districts implemented district-wide closures this week; many of which were for weather reasons. Last week, 108 districts had to close all their campuses.
“We hope that is a positive sign for the future,” said Pfeffer, who spoke Friday during Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s weekly news briefing. “We do know from talking with schools that they are now able to have more of their staff return. They are having fewer students who are having to be out. That’s not to minimize there are still issues going on at more localized individual campuses within schools, and that does have an impact on students, on staff, on parents, and the community.”
Pfeffer said school administrators are working to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on students’ ability to learn while balancing the need for student safety and providing “meaningful instruction.”
“On a day when that is not possible due to different factors – sometimes it’s weather, a power outage, utility issue that keeps a district from being able to open, sometimes it is disease or contagious outbreak like what we’ve been dealing with COVID – whenever that occurs, districts do have the option to implement an AMI day, ” she said.
Alternative methods of instruction days are sometimes implemented at the district level, while other times they only apply to a few campuses, Pfeffer said.
She said some districts may have to use of makeup days for times when in-person instruction was not possible. Each district has five, she said.
The state has 101,141 active COVID-19 cases, but Hutchinson said the state is “managing their way through it.”
“The hospital capacity is still there despite the high number of hospitalizations,” Hutchinson said.
Greg Crain of Arkansas Baptist Health said 63 additional beds, split between two hospitals, were added. Thirty-six of them already occupied by patients with COVID-19, he said.
