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Lunenburg County Public School (LCPS) is still monitoring COVID-19 cases to make the best decision possible when it comes to returning to in-person learning, school superintendent Charles Berkley said Monday, Sept. 28.

According to Berkley, LCPS is currently on a virtual learning schedule for students, but some students have returned for instructional assistance.

“We are bringing students in some now for one-on-one instructional assistance and hope to provide more services in the coming days,” Berkley said.

The school system was set to open to in-person learning on Aug. 24, but an increasing number of COVID-19 cases caused school officials to move to virtual learning.

How long LCPS will remain in its virtual learning mode is uncertain.

“We are monitoring data with the Piedmont Health Department, and once we see our numbers decreasing, we will make a decision of in-person learning/hybrid Plan,” Berkley said. “We want to come back to in-person learning as soon as possible, but we want to do this in a safe and efficient way.”

A hybrid Plan of instruction would mean a combination of in-person instruction mixed with several days of at-home virtual learning.

Berkley said the county is still seeing an increase in the number of cases of COVID-19 in both adults and juveniles.

“Hopefully, these numbers will start declining in the near future, and we can start bringing more students back into the schools under our Hybrid Plan of instruction.”

According to Piedmont Health District Director Dr. Robert Nash, as of Monday, Sept. 28 Lunenburg County was reporting one pediatric case.

“Pediatric Rates appear to be decreasing throughout the district,” Nash said.

A recent survey by WalletHub ranked Virginia 14th in the nation when it comes to the safest states for reopening.

According to WalletHub Communications Manager Diana Polk, in order to determine which states are the safest for reopening schools, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 15 key metrics.

“Our data set includes such things as the number of child COVID-19 cases per 100,000 children, the average public-school class size, and the ratio of students to school nurses.” Polk said.