By Ray King
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson announced Monday that all schools in the state will be closed for on-campus learning for the remainder of the school year.
Hutchinson was joined at his daily COVID-19 press conference by Education Secretary Johnny Key who said schools in the state will continue with AMI (Alternative Methods of Instruction). He said the department of education has worked with Public Television to offer lessons and PBS has enough material to last through April 17, which was the original date to reopen the schools.
Key said the state has the capacity to extend the AMI material to May 1 which will give school districts around the state time to create their own instructional materials to finish out the school year.
He said he expects those plans to be flexible and instructional, concentrating for example on what was covered in classrooms at the end of the third nine-week period
Key said he is encouraging districts to be “flexible” in their approach and said state officials are already working on how the shutdown will affect the 2020-2021 school year.
In his daily report, the Governor said there are currently 875 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 45 since Sunday. Seventy-four of those cases have required hospitalization, and the death roll remains at 16.
State Health Officer Dr. Nate Smith said 122 of the cases involve health care workers, including doctors, and 59 cases are in nursing homes.
Smith said the growth rate for COVID-19 has slowed because of the actions already taken such as social distancing and not gathering in groups of 10 or more and said state officials want to slow it some more.
“Our (number of) cases are going to go up every day but we are slowing the spread,” Hutchinson said.
Later in the news conference, Hutchinson said Arkansas is in the bottom nine in the country in reported cases per 100,000 residents.
“We need to continue to do what we’ve been doing and if that is not successful, Dr. Smith will offer some other alternatives,” Hutchinson said.
