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The Troup County School System is reopening three schools that were closed last week due to increasing COVID-19 numbers.

Long Cane Elementary, Long Cane Middle and Rosemont Elementary School have been closed since Wednesday, Aug. 17 but will reopen on Wednesday morning. Students have been taking virtual classes since the schools closed.

“While there have been some additional cases over the weekend, the cases in the last 24 hours have flattened out,” said Superintendent Brian Shumate. “If there have been any new direct contacts or positive cases in the last 48 hours, they have been a result of it, exposure, either at home or in the community.”

Shumate said the 5 to 7-day incubation period means any students who would’ve gotten the virus from school should be symptomatic by now.

“If everybody stays home tomorrow who should stay home, we should be okay,” he said. “We have enough staff to move forward and the principals have continued to monitor the situation along with district officials, and we felt like we’re in good shape to come back tomorrow with these three schools.”

Systemwide, there are 227 cases of COVID-19 in students and 31 in employees, according to the latest numbers TCSS released Tuesday. A total of 677 students are quarantined and 20 employees are in quarantine.

Long Cane Middle has 45 of the cases, plus 79 students in quarantine. Long Cane Elementary has 26 cases, plus 86 in quarantine and Rosemont Elementary has 16 and 49 in quarantine.

Long Cane Middle has three staff cases and three in quarantine; Long Cane Elementary has five staff cases and three in quarantine and Rosemont has four staff cases and no staff members in quarantine.

“I really want to encourage parents to really assess their own kids, and make sure they’re totally asymptomatic, and they haven’t had exposure to anyone who is symptomatic with a positive COVID case,” Shumate said.

Other schools with 10 or more students with a positive case of COVID-19 include Clearview (11), Franklin Forest (11), Hillcrest (11), Callaway Middle (12), Callaway High (20), LaGrange High (14) and Troup High (32.)

Shumate said TCSS is tracking cases at every school in the district.

“While our numbers have increased even since last Friday, we were looking at concentrations of cases and right now we feel like they’re spread out enough that we can continue keeping all of our schools open,” Shumate said.