Hutchison Goes Remote

Hutchison+Goes+Remote

The excitement of returning to in person school this fall came to a screeching halt after Hutchison’s 2020 fall break. Although the world is in the midst of a global pandemic people carried on with the fall break plans per usual. Dr. Ring Head of School said in a tweet “she was nervous about students not observing protocols.”  Before fall break was over Dr. Ring claimed in a tweet that “she was seeing images from fall break that put in person learning in jeopardy.” Out of an abundance of caution on the last day of fall break Hutchison decided to return to completely remote learning for the next week.

When this decision was made there were no active COVID-19 cases, however as the week moved on many cases began to pop up. Although the academic portion of school was completely remote sports still progressed. After the soccer team had participated in a soccer game with a local high school a player tested positive, as a result of fall break. Hutchison performed contact tracing which revealed that there were over 60 girls that would need to quarantine. This is when Hutchison made the decision to continue remote learning for another week. Hutchison received guidance from the Shelby County Health Department, and both parties agreed that closing was the best option. 

Lori Guy Director of Communications said to the Commercial Appeal, “We recognize that our ability to keep our campus open in a pandemic depends largely upon how our school community chooses to behave not only during school hours but also beyond.” All of the positive cases have been traced back to off campus activities. There have been no transmissions on the Hutchison campus. Although remote learning for two weeks has set Hutchison back from their plan to completely reopen the school, shutting down prevented the possibility of a much larger outbreak. Although this decision was very hard on all grades, especially the senior class, the COVID- 19 cases and known exposures were too difficult to control.  Safety for the students and faculty is Hutchison’s top priority before returning to school.