By John Estridge
Franklin County High School students will return to their pre-pandemic schedule Thursday morning, February 11.
The unanimous decision was made after a lengthy discussion during the public participation portion of the meeting and then again during the superintendent’s comments at the Monday, February 8, Franklin County Community School Corporation Board of Trustees’ meeting.
At a special meeting held Wednesday, January 27, the board members decided to extend the hybrid learning schedule until they could take up the subject again Monday night at their regular monthly meeting. During the public participation at Monday’s meeting, one parent expressed her displeasure at the board extending the hybrid schedule beyond the January 27 meeting.
Kelly Bolser said all the school corporations around FCCSC have already gone back to five-day-per-week in-person scheduling.
Bolser started a petition on Facebook to have the schedule changed back to in-school learning for five days a week and out of the hybrid schedule. She said she did much research prior to the meeting. She said the county is now listed as an orange county on the state’s COVID-19 map. New research has shown there is a small percentage of students getting COVID-19 when the students are in school. And new guidelines have students within three feet of each other instead of six feet and no quarantining.
She said the Batesville school system never went away from in-school learning on a five-day schedule.
According to Bolser, the school system has more students struggling and failing than ever before. She said her kids are struggling with the hybrid learning schedule.
“I’m tired of it,” Bolser said.
She said she has fought with her children and has been monitoring their work, but she said they “cannot teach themselves” and she has a job outside the home and cannot be home all the time.
“It’s not fair that our kids have to teach themselves, and I’m over it,” Bolser said.
She said the board members should not be afraid of getting sued by parents if a student contracts COVID-19 from being in school. Parents can sue the school corporation now for students’ emotional distress. Bolser said there is more depression and teen-age suicide since the schools went away from fulltime in-school learning.
The remark about suing the school, seemed to resonate with school board member Grant Reeves. He said on Facebook, Bolser threatened to sue the school. At first she denied it, but Reeves said he had a quote from Facebook that seemed to be a threat of a lawsuit against the school. She said the intent of her remark on Facebook was not to threaten suing the school corporation.
However, Reeves, who is an attorney who represents governmental agencies, said he is very frustrated by Facebook as people attack governmental entities and those in positions representing those governmental entities on Facebook instead of calling the representatives on the phone, asking questions and having a civil conversation.
On Facebook, people show aggression instead of trying to work together for a common good, he said. A case in point, it said on the petition “It is time for the board to stop hurting our kids and actually do what they say, help them EXCEL!” No one on the school board is trying to hurt children, Reeves and other board members said. Reeves and other members have children and grandchildren in the school system.
Board president Sharon Wesolowski said the board members, at the January 27 meeting, discussed all the information they had in hand on that night. On the day of the meeting, Dr. Kristina Box, Indiana State Board of Health commissioner, had warned school corporations not to veer away from the protocols in effect at that time, including the six-feet social distancing and the quarantining of students.
Also, the county was in the red during that time, and numbers of infections were high both locally and in the state.
School board member Rick Gill had children go through the school system and now has grandchildren going through the system. He was also upset by the inference he was trying to hurt children.
“That is the last thing I would ever want to do is put any kids going to the school in harm or do any emotional distress to them,” Gill said. “We’re not up here to do that. We’re up here to do what’s best for the students, what’s best for the teachers and what’s best for the school corporation.”
After that discussion, the board waited until it got to the superintendent’s comments to take action on the high school schedule.
Following a discussion, the board unanimously agreed to go back to the five-day, in-school schedule beginning Feb. 11. Students will have to wear masks, except during PE, music and lunchtime. In classes, students can be three feet apart. There will be no quarantining. If things get out of hand again in the state and county as well as the school regarding COVID-19 cases, the administration has the authority to decide to go back on the hybrid schedule.
Students whose parents have opted out of in-school learning for distance learning can continue doing that, board members said.
