With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging across the world, Connecticut and Westport continue to level with the fallout from it.
However, there is more bad news on the horizon. This includes the steadily increasing case numbers in Westport from in the last two weeks.
The case rate per 100,000 in Westport was near 21.6. Now, as of Jan. 14, it has exploded upwards to 27.2 per 100,000 and the case numbers in Fairfield County are nearly double that, up from 43.8 per 100,000 to 50 per 100,000.
Outside of that, on a more local level, Superintendent of Schools Thomas Scarice announced in an email on Jan. 13 that there were 10 new cases within the district, five of them coming from Staples, but no school closures coming as a result as of yet. He also reminded families that any student awaiting a COVID-19 test result should not come to school.
All Westport Public Schools plan to transition from the hybrid model to a fully in-person school model per Superintendent Thomas Scarice’s directive, the Board of Education (BOE) announced during a meeting on Jan. 19.
Elementary and middle schools are scheduled to shift into full in-person learning on Feb. 1. All elementary schools will move into full in-person learning, with a distinct schedule including a half-day on Wednesdays with students dismissed at 11:50 AM.
Middle schools will begin their transition on Feb. 1, but Wednesdays will serve as a half-day of distance learning for the first three weeks of the shift, with an eventual full reopening of five days of in-person learning on March 1.