Orleans Parish Superintendent of Schools Dr. Henderson Lewis Jr. announced at a press conference on Thursday that New Orleans Public Schools (NOLA PS) will remain in virtual learning for at least one more week.

All schools in New Orleans were asked to return to virtual-only instruction earlier this month after what district officials called a “dramatic uptick” in positivity rates and rising case numbers. At the time, the city was reporting an average of 215 cases per day.

On Thursday, the Orleans Parish positive test rate had fallen to 3.6 percent for the past week, with an average of around 195 cases per day. However, school and health officials did not feel that the data had been consistently low enough to support reopening.

According to NOLA PS Chief Operations Officer, the decision to remain virtual is based on several data points, including directional trends over a period of time. “We know that our positive test rate is really low and exactly where we want it to be. New case rates have been declining for the last week and a half, but we would like to make sure that is a trend and see that continue to decline for a full two weeks before we return to in-person learning,” Delcour said.

When schools are allowed to reopen, Lewis says that the return to in-person learning will be similar to when schools reopened in 2020, with younger students returning to the classroom first, and phasing in older children over a period of time.

NOLA PS said that they will spend the next week watching the data, and will announce a decision on reopening on Jan. 28th.