The post-Thanksgiving Day holiday surge in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases will shut down in-person instruction in Northampton Area School District.

NASD Superintendent of Schools Joseph S. Kovalchik made the announcement of the in-person instruction curtailment the evening of Dec. 9 to his 4,313 followers on Twitter; on the NASD website; and in a video chat posted on NASD’s YouTube channel, the latter with 3,641 views as of midnight Dec. 9.

The shutdown of face-to-face instruction for the 5,500 NASD students, kindergarten through grade 12, begins Dec. 14 and continues through the winter holiday break until Jan. 11, 2021.

Since the start of the school year, NASD has been notified of 96 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with the addition of two cases at George Wolf Elementary School, Bath, as reported in a Dec. 9 letter to parents, guardians and staff posted on the NASD website.

NASD has operated a hybrid system of instruction since the Aug. 31 start of the 2020-21 school year. NASD students, based on the first letter of their last name, attend in-person classes in schools two days a week and attend remote learning two days a week from their residences.

On Mondays, teachers and administrators are in school and available for consultations with students, who are at home.

Northampton Area High School closed to students, administration, teachers and staff Nov. 9-13 because of a spike in confirmed cases of COVID-19.

In-person classes in NASD were to have resumed the week of Jan. 4, 2021.

“There will be no face-to-face instruction the week of Jan. 4.” Kovalchik said in the video chat.

“Since we returned from Thanksgiving, we’ve had 37 positive COVID cases,” Kovalchik continued in the video, adding, “It’s a concern.

“The primary reason for closing is staffing concerns and the increased number of eLearning students,” Kovalchik said in a Dec. 9 email response to a question from Northampton Press.

“Winter sports practices and conditioning will continue for now,” Kovalchik said in the email.

“We are averaging approximately 70 staff members who are out every day,” Kovalchik said in the video chat, continuing, “As you can imagine, it is very difficult to run an operation when you have that many staff members out. The majority of that is because it’s COVID-related.

“Currently, we have 266 students who are in quarantine. And out of those 266, approximately 65 of those students are awaiting their test results in regards to COVID,” Kovalchik said. “We’re assuming we’re going to have many more positive cases coming our way. The numbers keep climbing up, and it’s just becoming a huge issue for us in regards to delivering eLearning instruction as well as the face-to-face. Our eLearning numbers are up. Back in August, we were at 25 percent. We’re approaching 34 percent right now,” Kovalchik added.

“I think it’s important at this time that we take a step back here and regroup and try to mitigate this as much as we possibly can in the coming weeks,” Kovalchik said in the video.

The video chat was to have been followed up with a Dec. 10 email from Kovalchik to parents, guardians and staff.

“Look forward to the future because the future looks bright,” Kovalchik said in the video. “As you know, the vaccine is starting to get out there to folks, and hopefully, that will come sooner than later for most of us and we can get back to five days a week and have our students back in the buildings, for academic reasons, of course, but as well as for socialization and all those extracurricular activities and, really, for what school is all about,” Kovalchik said in the video chat.