HERMANN — The spread of the latest variant of COVID-19 arrived last week, sending enough Gasconade County R-1 School District staffers home to prompt a long weekend for students.

Students were out of the classrooms Friday (Jan. 21) and Monday, with enough staffers testing positive to trigger the brief shutdown.

Superintendent Geoff Neill notified parents via an automated telephone call just before classes were dismissed Thursday afternoon. He said the Friday and Monday closings would be handled as though they were snow days, meaning the district calendar would not be affected. The school calendar allows for several snow-day closings, allowing R-1 to schedule 174 days of classroom instruction with the school year ending in mid-May.

With a plan in place to keep students in class, Neill earlier this month told the members of the Hermann Regional Economic Development Corporation the only way the schools would be closed was if the virus resulted in a staff shortage. The two-day cancellation of classes should allow enough staff members to end their isolation to resume classroom work.