MANCHESTER, N.H. (WHDH) - A New Hampshire school district is considering shifting to fully remote learning after the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks due to many staff members who plan to travel to visit family and friends.
Education officials in Manchester fear that there will not be a sufficient number of staff available at schools across the city following the holidays due to state guidelines that require a two-week quarantine period upon returning from destinations outside of New England amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A recent survey involving 1,000 staff members found that about 10 percent of teachers and other educational workers plan to leave the region to celebrate the holidays.
“I don’t think that a school district has the wherewithal to demand teachers that they can or cannot travel,” Manchester School Board member Jim O’Connell said.
O’Connell noted that the city was likely heading for fully remote learning due to a recent spike in virus cases.
“We work off a metric that says if more than 10 cases per 100,000 are discovered on a daily basis we go to fully remote,” O’Connell said. “We were at 9.8 percent coming into this week.”
The school board plans to hold an open meeting next Monday to vote on future plans.
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