Grand Haven Area Public Schools sent out a news release today announcing that due to rising numbers of COVID-19 cases around our area, they have decided that starting Friday, November 13th, they'll be moving Lakeshore Middle School and Grand Haven High School classes to virtual learning through Thanksgiving, in an effort to keep students and faculty safe, as well as hopefully slow the spread of the coronavirus down during this spike.

Grand Haven Area Public Schools Superintendent, Andrew Ingall. said in the news release,

“Every day, our leadership team reviews district, building and classroom data to assess whether it is in the best interest of our students and staff to continue in-person instruction. While there is no evidence of an imminent outbreak in our buildings, we have seen a recent rise in the number of cases at LMS and GHHS. Therefore, the data supports a temporary move to online instruction for our middle and high school students.”

Students will go back to in-person learning on Monday, November 30th.  As the school year has progressed, school officials in Grand Haven have been taking "a building-by-building or classroom-by-classroom approach" to the move to virtual or not. They also consult with the Ottawa County Department of Public Health, about daily COVID-19 cases as well as how many students and staff they have in quarantine, attendance numbers, as well as their ability to effectively contact-trace, according to the school's news release. They credit their success with contact-tracing and careful procedures regarding quarantining quickly, as to why they haven't seen a widespread outbreak of COVID-19 cases within the school district. The news release says the current number of district-wide cases only represents about 1% of the total school population.

During the virtual learning time, there will still be meal pick up services for Lakeshore Middle School and Grand Haven High School students; Wednesday, November 11th, and 18th as well as Friday, November 23rd, from 4-5 pm at Grand Haven High School and then from 5-6 pm at White Pines Elementary.

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