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VIDALIA — After looking at COVID-19 numbers in the Concordia Parish School District on Tuesday morning, a school official said the district decided to make Tuesday the last day of the semester rather than Thursday as originally planned.

“We’ve reached our pre-Thanksgiving numbers,” said Whest Shirley, superintendent of the Concordia Parish School District.

Shirley said the district had seven COVID-19 positive staff members, 35 quarantined staff members, 28 positive students and 285 quarantined students in the district’s 11 schools as of Tuesday morning.

By comparison, Shirley said that before Thanksgiving, the school district had three COVID-19 positive staff members, 25 quarantined staff members, 17 positive students and 300 quarantined students.

Shirley said that ever since returning from the Thanksgiving break, district officials have met each morning to discuss the numbers and monitor the caseload in the schools.

“It is scary right now,” Shirley said Tuesday afternoon, adding that the decision to end the semester early upset people in the community and made others happy. “We get calls every day. This close to Christmas we decided this was best.”