CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Clarksville-Montgomery County School System will transition all students to remote learning beginning tomorrow, Dec. 16, according to an email sent to families Tuesday morning.

In the email, CMCSS cited staffing issues as well as COVID-19 concerns as reasons for their decision to stop in-person classes.

All traditional, in-person students will switch to remote learning from Wednesday, Dec.16, until Friday, Dec.18.

Monday, Dec.21, was already scheduled as a districtwide remote learning day, meaning that traditional students will not return to CMCSS buildings until Monday, Jan. 4.

“CMCSS employees have been working tirelessly to make adjustments, remain flexible, and think outside the box to keep in-person learning possible for traditional students over the past four months. The decision to transition to remote learning was not taken lightly and was made in response to the conditions of the pandemic. We remain hopeful that the conditions of the pandemic will improve after Winter Break to allow in-person learning to resume for those families that chose that option. The CDT and MCHD will continue to monitor data daily over the break and update families,” said the email sent to parents by CMCSS.

During the remote learning period, students will access lessons via laptops provided by CMCSS.

Athletics and extra curriculars will be cancelled or postponed.

COVID in Montgomery County

The email explained some of the increasing dangers of COVID-19 in Clarksville.

“While the CMCSS Communicable Disease Team and the Montgomery County Health Department do not have specific thresholds for transitioning to remote learning, other than community spread, recent community and statewide data have heightened concerns.

“Last week, the White House Task Force classified Montgomery County as a red zone and the state’s new cases per 100,000 residents have exceeded national averages. Yesterday, the district reached a new record of 40 new cases in 20 unique schools, and the community reached a new record for community spread at 0.667%, which is almost double the percentage from last week. In total, there are currently 150 active COVID-19 student and employee school-level cases.

“MCHD is concerned that Clarksville-Montgomery County will reach high spread, or 1% or more, in the next week or two,” the email said.

“In addition to COVID-19 community data, yesterday, around 400 employees were on COVID-19 related leave and over 2,000 students had COVID-19 related absences. After substitutes were assigned, there were still almost 140 unfilled teacher absences and almost one-fourth of school nurses were absent.”