Panther Valley School District has temporarily furloughed some cafeteria workers as it shifts to online education for the next two weeks.

Even with the reduced staff the district will still provide free lunches to students during the remote learning period.

“We’ve been providing the meals to the online students. It will be the same locations,” said David McAndrew Jr., Superintendent of Panther Valley School District.

School board members voted to approve the furloughs during a special meeting Tuesday night.

Seven of the 15 cafeteria workers in the district were affected. They will be temporarily on leave until Dec. 14, when schools are currently scheduled to reopen.

Cafeteria workers were chosen because unlike other school employees, they don’t have to interact directly with children, McAndrew said.

On Tuesday, the district began a nine-day period of remote learning to prevent any possibility of a post-Thanksgiving surge in cases.

Those plans were in place since Nov. 19, but the district decided to shift to full remote learning for three days before the holiday as well.

That decision came after consulting with the Pennsylvania Department of Health about recent cases.

The district has had two students and one teacher test positive for the virus in the last two weeks.

During the three additional days off they conducted contact tracing and continued cleaning.

Sports were canceled during the three-day closure, but teams will be able to practice over the next two weeks.

Whether in-person classes resume on Dec. 14 will depend on how much spread of COVID-19 there is among school personnel, and all Carbon County residents.

All districts located in counties where there have been two straight weeks of “substantial spread” are required to sign an “attestation form” from the Pennsylvania Department of Education and Department of Health.

Terms of the agreement include mandatory compliance with some department regulations - including closing a school building for three to seven days if there are multiple positive tests. More positive tests could mean a longer closure.

“If you are in “substantial” and you do have cases in your building, you must close down and go virtual. It’s no longer up to individuals, you must do that per the state,” McAndrew said.