On Friday, March 13, Gov. Ralph Northam officially announced that Virginia would become the eighth state to shut down all kindergarten through 12th grade public schools in response to the continuing spread of COVID-19. Virginia joins Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Louisiana, Oregon, New Mexico and West Virginia, as well as large urban school districts of Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. All closures are scheduled to go into effect Monday, March 16 and continue for two weeks until Friday, March 27.
In a press release issued earlier today, Northam wrote: “I recognize this will pose a hardship on many families, but closing our schools for two weeks will not only give our staff time to clean and disinfect school facilities, it will help slow the spread of this virus.”
As many students throughout the region rely on free and reduced meals during the school day, several county school systems are looking into ways to continue this operation.
As of press time, there are 30 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Virginia, up from 17 just one day earlier, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
Due to the recent rise of COVID-19 (coronavirus) cases in the DMV, we are informing readers about event cancellations across the region. If you are looking for national updates, local school coverage and more, please visit our dedicated coronavirus coverage here.
