On March 16, the Oklahoma State School Board ordered all public schools in the state to cease operations for students and educators until April 6 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by a novel coronavirus.

Teachers and school district leaders across the state are scrambling to begin offering students a variety of distance or remote learning models beginning Monday and lasting for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year as state and local efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus continue.

Micah Choquette, owner and editor of the Sapulpa Times, wrote in an apology published later Wednesday that “the earlier story was a poor attempt at an April Fools’ joke that has turned much more sour than we anticipated.”

“The story was not endorsed by, approved by, or even known about by any of the Sapulpa Schools Administration when it went live on Wednesday morning, but SPS are the ones now having to deal with frantic parents and angry teachers.”