“Virtual is not an option” for students of the Lincoln County School District for the 2021-2022 school year, according to a district announcement made Friday.

The LCSD office announced via statement that continued virtual learning across the upcoming school year was not a viable option due to inadequate technology availability.

“In order to have a virtual student, the student would be required to have excellent internet capacity and service to live-stream classes 8 a.m. to 3:20 p.m. five days a week — continuously and in high quality (no lagging, loss of service, etc.) at the student’s/family’s expense,” the statement read. “Due to the internet availability to the majority of our students, this means virtual is not an option.”

“It is our hope that if we have to move to a non-traditional schedule that MDE will change the policy to allow districts to provide services and resources as they are available to us,” Superintendent Dr. David Martin said via the statement.

Because students will be in classrooms five days a week for in-person instruction, MDE and local school districts are taking steps to keep those students healthy.

Masks will not be required, but may be worn if desired. Enhanced cleaning will continue and rapid tests will be available for students who are exposed — with parental consent.

“The rapid test we currently have would be a shallow nose swab and then the swab is placed in a container with reactive drops, and results show up in a few minutes,” Martin said.

The letter was posted to the four school websites Friday morning and includes additional information important to parents and guardians of students, such as updates on campus construction projects and a school year calendar.

Students will return to campus August 5 for the first day of school.