All 75 Bergen County school districts will close and use online learning in an effort to stave off the growing coronavirus pandemic, County Executive James Tedesco announced Thursday night.

“As the county executive, I feel that closing all of our public schools in Bergen County is just a paramount decision,” Tedesco said. “I do not take it, or make it lightly.”

The 75 districts have 170,000 students, 16,000 teachers and hundreds of administrators and support staff, Tedesco said. Closures will begin 3 p.m. Friday and last until further notice.

Tedesco said he asked private and religious schools to also close. The Rabbinical Council of Bergen County on Thursday announced it would close synagogues and yeshivas.

“We are also encouraging businesses to let their employees stay at home using telecommunication technology to be with their children to address their childcare needs, and if that is not possible, we hope and expect private businesses would make allowances to their employees to be paid for a reasonable time to take care of their families, similar to the civil service guidelines public employees have,” the county executive added.

The county’s health officer recommended officials take the step to shut down schools to help stop the spread of the highly-contagious virus. Bergen County has the most coronavirus cases in the state, reporting 13 presumptive positive results with one death. Two additional cases were reported Thursday.

Also on Thursday, Gov. Phil Murphy recommend the cancellation of all public gatherings with more than 250 people as cases of the illness have been reported in 11 of the state’s 21 counties.

UPDATE: After consulting with Executive Leadership of the Bergen County Association of School Administrators and our... Posted by Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco on Thursday, March 12, 2020

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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