Dinwiddie County Public Schools Changes the 2020-2021 Reopening Plan

Dinwiddie, Va. — Today, the School Board approved Dr. Weston’s recommendation to change the reopening plan to a full virtual instructional delivery model for all students. The school system has been continuously reviewing the health data over the past month with the Crater Health District and county leaders.

Over the course of the past two weeks, there has been a notable increase in the number of cases and the positivity rate. Based on the information received from the Crater Health District, there is community spread of the virus not related to an outbreak. There is also an increase within the Crater Health District for the number of cases in youth between the ages of 0-19, with two such cases here in Dinwiddie. This is concerning because of the difficulty to mitigate the spread of the virus and for contact tracing. Additionally, there have been six unrelated positive cases among division employees.

Board Chair Barbara Pittman said, “We are disappointed. We want our students to come to school face to face, but we need to be safe, especially since we are seeing cases within our school district.”
The school division will continue to work closely with the Virginia Department of Health and monitor the health data for our community during the first several weeks of school. If the data improves, a projected targeted return date for hybrid learners is October 1.

According to Superintendent Dr. Weston, “We understand the challenges that this change in our plan may create for our families. While we all know that the best place for students to learn is in the classroom; however, the safest place at this moment in time is to provide instruction virtually. Our staff will continue to work with the School Board and health officials to return to in-person instruction as soon as it is safer to do so.”

Please contact Christie Clarke at cclarke@dcpsnet.org or 804-469-4190 with any questions.

Click here to view PDF of our DCPS School Reopening Change 8.25.20