The remnants of Hurricane Zeta that knocked out power for nearly 1 million people across north Georgia also upended plans for metro Atlanta schools to hold virtual learning sessions.
Atlanta Public Schools, Douglas County School System, Paulding County School District, Bartow County Schools and Marietta City Schools all canceled Thursday virtual learning classes due to widespread power outages outages.
Atlanta school custodians, maintenance workers and school resource officers were to report to work by 10 a.m. to help with clean up and other storm recovery efforts, a spokesman said. Douglas County schools said any assignments due Thursday will be made up at a later date.
Marietta City Schools Superintendent Dr. Grant Rivera said any attempt for students and staff to engage in virtual learning would have been “too inconsistent and frustrating to be of value to our kids or staff.”
“Take the day. Disconnect," he said Thursday morning. "There is no expectation for any virtual learning today.”
City Schools of Decatur, Clayton, Cobb, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett and DeKalb County schools forged ahead with plans to hold virtual learning, but said they would not penalize students who did not have power and internet access.
A Fayette County schools spokeswoman said the system “weathered the storm fairly well."
“We had some power outages, but school will be able to resume tomorrow," she said. "Our teachers were asked to create asynchronous lessons yesterday for students to work on today. Students will have five days to turn in the lessons in case they are without power.”
Floyd, Hall and Polk County schools did not indicate if they called off their original plans to hold virtual learning sessions Thursday. Forsyth, Henry and Cherokee County schools all canceled in-person and remote classes due to the storm.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters Vanessa McCray, Leon Stafford and Tyler Estep contributed to this report.
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