Coronavirus: Hamblen County Schools officially back in business on Tuesday

HAMBLEN COUNTY, Tenn. (WATE) — If you’re in Hamblen County, on Tuesday, the school bells were finally ringing.

The start of school was pushed back to after Labor Day, due to Hamblen County being labeled as a hotspot for the novel coronavirus in July.

Precautions like masks and temperature-taking were easy to see in the drop-off as our cameras rolled.

Superintendent Jeff Perry says his district learned from challenges shared by school leaders in other communities as they prepared for this day.

“There’s been some experiences they’ve had some challenges that we’ve been able to learn from so after planning all summer we really think we have some good plans in place but we had to make some modifications to deal with some of the new challenges that we’ve had.”

Superintendent Jeff Perry

Perry says around 2,800 students are taking advantage of online classes, which is about 26% of the district’s student body.

School leaders had to make sure each student had a computer, and they also handed out more than 200 wireless hotspots to make sure online students had internet access.