School has been in session for three weeks now and the talk of school closing down and going virtual has been increasing due to COVID-19 and its new and extremely spreadable variant, Omicron.

However, the actual chance of the school going virtual is currently unknown.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Kevin Snavely, assistant principal at SHS, said. “That’s a decision that is made by [Superintendent] Dr. Cleveland and the district administration. If they make that determination, they would let us know and the information would go out as soon as possible.”

There has been a rising number of students and staff being quarantined and testing positive for COVID-19 due to the new Omicron variant.

“As of Tuesday, we had 136 students that were out and about 37 staff members that were out,” Snavely said.

The extreme spike and uprise in COVID cases led to the cancellation of a pep rally that was supposed to happen on Jan 7.

“We did close the pep rally due to the spike in covid cases,” Snavely said. “Just to add an extra layer of protection to our students.”

The school offered optional virtual learning days on Thursday, Jan. 13, and Friday, Jan. 14 due to an increasing number of student and teacher absences.