Beatrice Public Schools to close Thursday, Friday

BEATRICE - A recent rapid rise of COVID-19 cases and other illnesses creating staffing issues, is prompting Beatrice Public Schools to call off school for this Thursday and Friday.

School officials say they are concerned about having sufficient staff in buildings each week to keep schools safely open for student in-person learning.
Superintendent Jason Alexander says staff shortages are being seen everywhere across the district.

"With the fact that we draw from the same sub pool as many other area schools, we're down to the point where our sub pool is just about non-existent. We don't have enough coverage for the number of teachers who are out....and on top of that, we also have a number of students that are also either positive Covid cases or experiencing other illnesses. I think that is an important fact to keep in mind.  We know that Covid is a major factor in this but we know that there's a number of other illnesses out there....we're experiencing high numbers of students who are out. When you couple that together, just conducting in-person school is enough of a challenge....and we made the decision to call off Thursday and Friday."

The district says several students are missing valuable instruction and falling behind. District officials are hoping that two days off from classes will aid in recovery time, and allow staff handling other classes time to catch up on their regular instruction duties.

"It's kind of ironic that at the middle school, we're experiencing more students (out) than staff...but you go to the high school....and it's exactly the opposite."

Alexander said the district is at about 1.59% positive rate on Covid numbers, but those are just the known results among students and staff.

"It's something that we hoped to be able to avoid, but it's kind of worked it's way this direction and in talking with other superintendents in the area...they're all looking at similar types of situations with similar types of actions, as well."

On Thursday, January 20th and Friday, January 21st, Beatrice Public Schools will not be in session. BPS buildings will remain open with teachers reporting.
The BLAST after-school program will be closed. Middle school and high school extracurricular activities and athletics will continue as scheduled. Lunch will not be provided on Thursday and Friday