In-Person Classes To Resume In Gwinnett County On Aug. 26 — Maybe

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — Some Gwinnett County students may be back in their classrooms as soon as Aug. 26, according to a tentative plan announced Tuesday by district superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks.

There is a catch, though: If the COVID-19 situation in Gwinnett County changes, so would those dates.

“We have stated from the beginning of the COVID crisis that in-person instruction for every student is what we prefer and would work to achieve,” Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks wrote in an open letter to the community, emailed to parents and posted to the district’s website.

The letter shows a chart of how in-person learning may be phased in, a few grades at a time, after starting the school year online only on Aug. 12.

The chart comes with an asterisk and this sentence: “Dates are subject to change depending on the COVID-19 conditions in Gwinnett County at that time.”

The letter attempts to answer concerns of Gwinnett parents, many with jobs or special-needs children better served by in-person instruction. Anger by parents who felt they’d be robbed of a choice led to several heated rallies in the parking lot of the district’s headquarters in Suwanee.

Gwinnett County has reported 18,201 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, ranking it second among 159 Georgia counties. The county also has reported 240 deaths from COVID-19. While nobody younger than 30 in Gwinnett County has died, COVID-19 can be carried asymptomatically by young people and passed to those who are more vulnerable.

The complete letter is posted on the Gwinnett County Public Schools’ website.

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