GREEN BAY, Wis (NBC 26) -- As COVID cases continue to rise in northeast Wisconsin, schools in Menasha to Oshkosh have had to temporarily, switch to virtual learning.
Some school districts including Green Bay, have been virtual teaching students exclusively since the beginning of the school year. The Green Bay School Board made the decision before classes were set to resume, deciding that their 21-thousand students would be taught completely virtually to start the year.
"I do feel like the district made the best choice given the worst circumstance to start virtually," says Kristina Shelton the Vice President of the Green Bay School Board.
Shelton says keeping kids out of the classroom hasn't always been the most popular choice, but the board made the decision based on data-driven trends of the virus that are continually changing.
"It's hard to know what the decisions are that are going to set you up to be the most prepared you can be because everything is changing so rapidly."
Shelton says starting the school year virtually may have put her district in a unique position, a position where teachers and students are able to pivot back to a teaching model down the road that would bring everyone back to school.
"We wanted to be able to set up a system for strong virtual learning because once we have that foundation, we can always go back right, we always have that to fall back on."
Shelton says ultimately every district had to make their own decisions on how to start the year based on their positive cases of COVID, parent and teacher input, and even the size of their district. But with so many schools now converting back to a virtual learning model she says it sadly, didn't catch her off guard.
"Unfortunately, I'll say it's not surprising seeing what we're seeing in other districts. With the spread of COVID so high in Wisconsin, public schools have been impacted in significant ways."
And a piece of advice from the Green Bay School Board to all parents sending their kids back to a virtual classroom in the weeks to come, Shelton says if your child is struggling in a virtual setting you should reach out to their teacher, principal or school board members immediately to see what can be done to help.
