Some administrators at the Knox County Schools central office found themselves in the classroom this week. They served as substitutes after COVID-19 brought an increasing number of teachers and students into quarantine.
"When that happens, it just puts a lot of additional pressure on a school that is in-person," Superintendent Bob Thomas said Friday.
Between school closures, quarantines and students already virtual, Thomas said nearly half the district learned online this week.
He said a key culprit for the increase came from the basketball court.
"When basketball kicked off the practices and so forth we saw an almost immediate increase in COVID-19," he said.
The record high cases in schools led him to cancel sports and in-person classes for the semester's final week.
The current plan is for in-person school to resume on January 5.
"With the worst yet to come, it's a difficult, difficult call," Thomas warned. "The plan right now is to be back in person on January 5 but a lot of that is going to depend on what we see in our numbers and what our health department sees."
He said district administrators learned lessons as well over the semester.
Moving forward they want to give parents better notifications before switching online. Overall, Thomas said he's proud of how long in-person school lasted.
"Would you have thought it would've gone this well back in August? No," he said. "Now we've had the problems and the hiccups but we've had the opportunity to work through those."
The district planned to send out more resources this weekend for parents shifting to online school for the final week of the semester.