Florida schools to remain closed through end of April with remote learning in place

LAKE MARY, Fla. - Schools across Florida will remain closed and remote learning extended through April 30, according to guidance from the Florida Department of Education.

Several Central Florida school districts have canceled extracurricular activities during this time and all school meetings will be held remotely.

Distance learing began on Monday for Florida students after a two-week spring break that was extended by one week due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The region's largest school distict, Orange County Public Schools (OCPS), reported over 118,000 students and 11,000 staff members logged into the district’s dashboard LaunchPad -- between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., there were more than 80,000 logins alone. Additionally, 3,000-plus video conferences took place between teachers and their classes in the morning.

OCPS says many platforms experienced a slowdown or errors.

"These issues are occurring not just here in Orange County but also across the state. OCPS teams have continued to work with our vendors to upgrade servers, fix problems and take other steps to improve the system response," the district says.

While Florida’s testing has increased over the past week, the percent of those testing positive for COVID-19 overall is 10 percent, according to the Florida Department of Health. Of the 7,754 tests performed on March 29, there were 1,018 positive results, or 13 percent.

There were 5,489 positive cases in Florida as of Monday afternoon, with a total of 71 deaths.

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