Belleville high schools students will return to remote learning this week

Belleville High School students won’t be returning to school in-person this week.

District 201 was supposed to resume after winter break on Tuesday. Instead, students will have Tuesday off and classes will be remote Wednesday through Friday, Superintendent Brian Mentzer said in a robocall that went out to parents.

“This pause is intended to be brief,” Mentzer said in the call. “We will re-evaluate over the weekend.”

Mentzer said the district had to go remote due to staffing shortages.

“We’ve got a significant number of people out,” he said. “If that number decreases, we’re back Monday.”

New daily COVID case numbers in Illinois are at an all-time high, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. Every county, including St. Clair County, is considered to have high transmission.

The seven-day average for new cases on Thursday was 18,321. That’s more than 2.5 times than just a few weeks ago; on Dec. 13, the seven-day average was 7,153 new cases per day. It’s been rising steeply ever since.

“Despite our best effort to start second semester in person, the increase in infections throughout the community has impacted our ability to appropriately and safely staff our buildings,” Mentzer said.

The previous high for new cases was a seven-day average of 12,384 new cases in November 2020.

This story was updated at 2:50 p.m. with information about why the district had to go remote.

This story was originally published January 3, 2022 at 1:47 PM.