Alachua County Schools closed until March 30th

Jackie Johnson, the Public Information Officer for Alachua County Public Schools, released the following statement in regards to school closings:

Late this afternoon, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran instructed all Florida public school districts to extend their spring breaks by an extra week. That being the case, Alachua County Public Schools will be closed from March 16^th through March 27^th. Currently the plan is to reopen schools on March 30^th following deep cleaning of both schools and school buses.

All employees will be reporting for work on Monday the 16th for the cleaning, planning for instructional continuity and other critical tasks as we prepare for next week and for the return of students.

The district is finalizing plans to provide meals to students from March 16 through March 19, when schools were originally scheduled to be open. We will share more information about this as soon as possible.

We recognize the difficulty this will create for families, but based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control, this step is needed to help safeguard the health and well-being of students, staff and the community.

Emails, phone messages and text messages have been sent to all families and staff about this.