The superintendent of the Decatur City School system is crediting quick action to quarantine as helping the system avoid outbreaks of coronavirus since students returned to classrooms last month.

WAAY-31 has more on how coronavirus is impacting the system today, and what leaders are doing about it.

Superintendent Michael Douglas says the system has a total of 151 students in quarantine, and they'll keep doing their best to ensure the safety of the district's nearly 9,000 students and staff members.

"That's what allowed us to keep the doors open because I think the reason we've had few cases in students is because of the quarantining that we've done," he said.

Douglas said they can continue to do better.

In total, there's nearly 9,000 students enrolled in the system - with 2,000 in virtual learning and 7,000 in classrooms.

"I was extremely concerned with the pandemic that we would lose numbers and that would cause us in turn to lose teacher units but we've held where we are," he said.

As of last Friday, they've had 5 students test positive for coronavirus...one student each in 5 different schools:

Austin High School, Austin Junior High, Austin Middle School, Benjamin Davis Elementary and Decatur High School.

Currently 151 students are in self-isolation.

Two faculty members also tested positive for coronavirus and 34 faculty members are in self-isolation.

Douglas says, all in all, they're still doing well.

"The big message we've had is we're going to do the best we can. Every week we get, we feel like is good, but we're also being aware and getting prepared for if we have an uptick," he said.

Douglas said this is has been the roughest year for school teachers but he applauds them for doing such a good job with added responsibilities.