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MADISON, Ala.- The Madison City School District announced Tuesday that classes will change to a virtual platform for all students beginning Thursday, Jan. 27. Superintendent Dr. Ed Nichols says students will return for in-person learning on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022.

“We’ve about exhausted all of the staff at the central office and other areas to sub that we have so we are going to take a break,” says Superintendent Dr. Ed Nichols.

Nichols says the decision to transition Madison City Schools to virtual learning was not taken lightly, but they ultimately ran out of options.

“We have held out. Our staff and faculty have done a tremendous job we’ve had people all across the district helping to serve our subs have done a great job,” says Nichols.

But Nichols says it just has people spread too thin, even joking that he substituted for a physical education class.

“We need a couple of days there to get our reinforcements back up. I know it’s a hardship on some of our families if they have to take off work but if we don’t do this then we could see that extended long period of time,” says Nichols.

The district’s virtual days will be asynchronous, meaning the lessons will be uploaded online but not live.

“So they’ll upload lessons and the students will be self-paced kind of on that we would love to do a synchronize lesson but the challenge of that is one a teacher may be home and is able to upload a lesson to zoom in an actual lecture and do the lesson while they’re home sick,” says Nichols.

Nichols says many people haven’t been able to get back to work in a 5-day window and hopes the break of consecutive days allows people to return from COVID absences.

“I hope that will be able to restart on Tuesday in person I’ve talked to several districts around the state that took a few days and they were able to kind of get a restart,” says Nichols.

Madison City Schools have set up a food collection location for Friday at the old West Madison Elementary campus. Parents have to sign up for meals through the google form sent out by the district.