State school officials are among those keeping a close watch on the COVID-19 numbers, which is helping them to make their case for bringing more students back into the classroom.|| Coronavirus updates | Maryland's latest numbers | Get tested | Vaccine Info ||Maryland State schools Superintendent Dr. Karen Salmon visited Baltimore City's Walter P. Carter Elementary/Middle School, which has small groups of students learning in person. She accepted an invitation from district CEO Sonja Santelises to visit the school as districts like Baltimore are preparing to bring more students back to the classroom."The children are so happy to be back and it's wonderful to see all of the mitigation strategies that they have in place here -- the signs on the floor, the hand sanitizer stations, the partitions around the desks in the classroom," Salmon said.The school's principal, Brandon Pinkney, said it is the result of lots of work behind the scenes."This is amazing. I'm just very elated to have them here to see what we've been doing to make to really make it work according to the health and safety guidelines to bring students back into the building, especially those most vulnerable students who need additional push and teacher support," Pinkney said.A few days ago, the district stepped up its no-symptom COVID-19 school-based testing. It's all a part of its plan to bring more students back to school."I think one of the things that's really verifying is as we're walking to really see the protocols, living breathing part of the school, kids safely back, teachers who have been back, and just really getting to see what it looks like in a real classroom," Santelises said.The Baltimore Teachers Union, also along on the tour, said it's too early to give the district a passing grade, but it's impressed by what it saw at Walter P. Carter."This school is much cleaner than most of our schools which is good to see and I'm hoping that we can get our other schools as clean or cleaner," union President Diamont'e Brown said.The state superintendent also visited a second school Thursday.