Educator dies of COVID weeks after retiring due to virus concerns, Georgia family says
An imminent spike in COVID-19 cases after Thanksgiving forced a Georgia educator to choose between her health and the work she loved, family members said.
Maude Jones, a special education paraprofessional with Gwinnett County Public Schools, decided she wouldn’t return to the classroom and submitted her paperwork to retire on Dec. 18, the final day of fall semester, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Weeks later, complications from the virus claimed her life.
“She was a very lively person,” Jones’ daughter, Nyenneh Jones, told the newspaper. “She was happy all the time. She loved the children she worked with. Her work was so important to her.”
The paraprofessional’s death is the latest in a string of teacher deaths in Georgia, including Henry County kindergarten teacher LuAnn Burns and Patrick Key, a Cobb County art teacher who died from the virus on Christmas, McClatchy News reported.
Nyenneh Jones said her mother tested positive for the virus in early December and was hospitalized Dec. 16, just two days before her retirement, according to WAGA-TV. From then, Jones said her mother’s health deteriorated.
“It just happened like one thing after another, after another,” she told the outlet. “It was like a ball rolling downhill.”
Relatives said Jones, 64, died Jan. 4 at Northside Hospital Gwinnett, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Her family and the Gwinnett County schools community are now grappling with the loss.
Jones, a native of Liberia, taught at Rock Springs Elementary School in Lawrenceville, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta. She worked with Gwinnett County schools for more than a decade before her death, according to WSB-TV.
Her niece, Joan Jones, said her aunt was cautious and took COVID-19 seriously, yet contracted it, the news station reported. She was sent home to isolate on Dec. 7 after a fellow teacher tested positive for the virus, her niece said.
Maude Jones was tested a few days later, and it came back positive.
Relatives believe Jones may have contracted the virus while at school, though that hasn’t been confirmed.
“They (the district) are more worried abut curriculum than worried about life,” Joan Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If they had waited until the vaccine rolled out, she would be here today. ... This could’ve been avoided.”
Rock Springs Elementary School Principal Dr. Allan Gee shared news of Jones’ death in a letter to students and parents last week, WXIA reported. It didn’t mention her COVID-19 diagnosis, however, nor her cause of death.
Joan Jones described her late aunt as the “glue of our family.”
“She loved her job, students and workmates,” Joan Jones said, according to WSB-TV. “This is a big blow. This is a loss we could never recover.”
McClatchy News reached out to Gwinnett County Public Schools for comment on Tuesday and is awaiting a response.
This story was originally published January 12, 2021 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Educator dies of COVID weeks after retiring due to virus concerns, Georgia family says."