Home learning has been reintroduced at one Orange high school and mandatory mask wearing at others as principals deal with a surge in COVID cases.
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Year 9 students Canobolas Rural Technology High School will learn from home from Monday to Wednesday this week.
"Recent impacts from COVID-19 have meant that some students and teaching staff at Canobolas Rural Technology High School cannot attend school," principal Brett Blaker said in a letter to parents.
"These positive COVID-19 cases have particularly impacted the Year 9 cohort resulting in this group of students needing to temporarily revert to learning from home.
"Year 9 students will return to school as per usual on Thursday March 31."
All other staff and students will continue to attend school for face-to-face learning.
The move comes as Canobolas High continues to struggle with staffing issues.
Meanwhile, Orange High School has announced a return to mandatory mask wearing for staff and students as of March 28, four weeks after NSW mask mandates were dropped for schools.
"We have had a surge in cases and want to keep the school operational so extra precautions are required," the school told parents via social media.
James Sheahan Catholic High School has also reintroduced mask wearing, with principal Peter Meers saying in a letter to parents that he had made "the difficult decision" to reimpose compulsory mask wearing in classrooms for students and for teachers.
At Kinross Wolaroi School, masks were mandatory for students until Monday March 14 and are now strongly recommended.
The school has continued to enforce mandatory indoor mask wearing for staff and visitors, which has been extended until the end of Term 1.
Principal Dr Andrew Parry said this was a precautionary measure in response to continuing positive cases in the community and was intended to maintain face-to-face learning.
Dr Parry said the school had experienced a steady but low rate of positive cases this term and was supporting students who wished to continue to mask.
Dr Parry said the school's situation was monitored and reviewed weekly and adjustments to health settings would be made as required.
He said the number of cases at the school had not increased markedly since masking for students was removed but did not rule out the reintroduction of masks if cases continued to rise in the community.
Schools statewide are being impacted as the Omicron sub-variant BA.2 sees COVID cases rise.
Current NSW Health and Department of Education guidelines are seeing measures such as mask wearing and remote learning re-introduced at public schools on a case-by-case basis.
Twice-weekly Rapid Antigen Testing for school children and staff was dropped as requirement in NSW Schools on February 28, with testing now only required is students or staff have symptoms.
Positive RAT or PCR test results for all staff and students must be reported to the school.
Orange's COVID cases have have surged past 2000 in recent days.
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