Governor Edwards To Keep Schools Closed Till At Least April 30th
During today's COVID-19 briefing, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said he would be extending his "Stay at Home" order until at least April 30th. The current order is set to expire on April 13th.
The current order has closed schools, casinos, movie theaters, gyms, bars, and other non-essential businesses. It has also limited public gatherings to no more than 10 people.
Since President Donald Trump extended the national COVID guidelines over the weekend, Governor Edwards has said he intends to extent Louisiana's order as well. However due to the length of the language in the order, it has taken some time for the Governor to get the Emergency Order executed. But he has stated multiple times that it will be signed by the end of this week.
Some of the parts of that order have been less-than-clear up to this point. One of the main questions has to do with schools across the state. The current school closures go to April 13th, and if they are a part of the new order, they would now be closed till April 30th. Today, the Governor kind of cleared that up.
"Before the end of the week, we're going to extend this order through April the 30th. And we're going to extend all of the current proclamations to that same time period, and get them all, they'll all be wrapped up. So this next proclamation you see is gonna be a long one. Because we're going to take all those measures, put them in a proclamation again, and extend to April 30th."
This would mean that the school proclamation would be wrapped up with all of the other proclamations. So it would be extended to April 30th, along with casino, bar, gym, and movie theater closings.
However, there could be a different proclamation for schools, which could end the school year prematurely. The State of Louisiana has already been approved by the Federal Government to forego standardized testing for this school year, which may have paved the way for the school year to end.
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