Welcome to Reconnect Hall August 2023!
We are excited about the new school year and we look forward to working with all stakeholders to ensure a safe and meaningful learning environment for the boys and girls of The Hall County School District.
This page will provide you with guidelines for the opening of school in August of 2023. Please note that these guidelines are subject to change based on the health status of the community we serve. Throughout the school year, we will rely on data, as well as advice from local healthcare professionals and the Department of Public Health to make informed decisions.
If you have follow up questions to any of the information provided here, please begin by reaching out to your local school.
Once again, we appreciate the cooperation and support of all families and team members, and we look forward to a safe and successful 2023-24 school year.
Latest Announcement
HCSD COVID Update, 8/19/2021
- Vaccines keep adults alive. We encourage all medically able individuals to consider vaccination with their health care provider. At our 8/23/2021 meeting, I will be recommending to our board of education that we provide a one-time $400 supplement to all HCSD employees who show proof of being fully COVID vaccinated prior to October 15, 2021.
- Georgia hospitals have 50 pediatric COVID cases, an increase of 22 cases in recent weeks (source AJC article, 8/18/2021); we have between 1.8-2 million school age children in Georgia.
- Anxiety, depression, and mental illness rates have risen dramatically since the pandemic began. Our HCSD parent data suggests that mitigation strategies (masks, quarantine, social distancing, capacity limits, etc.) have been a negative factor for 46% of our families, and a positive factor for 21% of our families. (Source HCSD parent survey)
- We estimate that we lost 40-70 students who dropped out of school last year that would normally have graduated; this would translate to 3,000-4,000 students across Georgia. (HCSD has approximately 1.6% of Georgia student population)
- Randomized Clinical Trials to test the effectiveness of wearing masks do not yet exist; we do have case studies that suggest masking slows transmission rates. That has also been our local experience.
- While not a clinical trial, we look at mid-sized districts in Georgia to ascertain positive COVID cases with masking and without masking. Examples:
- District A: 12,000 students, masks required, 100 positive cases
- District B: 22,000 students, masks required, 214 positive cases
- Hall County Schools: 27,000 students, masks recommended, 229 positive cases
- As of yesterday, a DPH representative again confirmed that at this time, there is no evidence that school-aged children have been significant sources of COVID transmission. A noon webinar with CHOA today also expressed school-age transmission is coming from community.
- Local pediatricians and our hospital system are experiencing an increase in the number of children with more severe COVID symptoms.
- Hall County COVID Data since pandemic began:
- Age 5-9
- 5 hospitalizations, 0 deaths
- Age 10-17
- 33 hospitalizations, 0 deaths
- Age 5-9
We continue to monitor conditions multiple times throughout each day and will make adjustments as conditions change or as new information is made available.