HOLLAND PATENT, N.Y. - Students in the Holland Patent Central School District are learning from home this week after four coronavirus cases were confirmed in the district.

Holland Patent superintendent, Jason Evangelist, says after consulting with the Oneida County Health Department, the district determined that it was in the best interest of the community to keep school buildings closed and suspend extracurricular activities for one week. All students are engaging in remote instruction.

Closing for a week allows the health department to do an extensive investigation and more time to ensure all the proper contact tracing is completed.

"The health department is still underway with contact tracing and investigation; we still have more work to do and to look into some more things and that's where we are as of right now," Evangelist said. "Based on the cases and events we had within the community, there needs to be more tracing investigation done and we'll know when those families have been contacted."

Evangelist says he's optimistic that students will return to school next week.

Another local district came off of remote learning and switched to hybrid on Monday.

The New Hartford Central School District welcomes students back into the classroom.

"We're off to a great start," Robert Nole, New Hartford superintendent said. "Everything went smoothly and overall it appeared that everyone enjoyed the first day back."

He says things may look a lot different this year, but the feelings were the same.

“School arrival certainly looked different this year, students wore masks and students entered the building single file and socially distanced," Nole said "Walking the hallways, the sights and sounds of traditional school is evident and that is especially heartwarming today.”

New Hartford will welcome their second cohort tomorrow.