By John Estridge
As with much of 2020, what to do next with the Union County Middle School and Union County High School is very uncertain.
Currently, the students at the two schools are on virtual learning until November 30. Extracurricular activities are also canceled through November 23.
Union County College Corner Joint School District Superintendent Aron Borowiak went through the possible scenarios for both situations at a special public work session Tuesday night, November 17, at the UCMS cafeteria.
Prior to going through the scenarios, Borowiak went through the sobering numbers. Currently, Union County is one of nine counties in the state designated as red by the Indiana State Department of Health; however, Borowiak said the county should go to orange on Wednesday, November 18, as numbers related to COVID-19 are going down in the county.
Since August 13, there have been a total of 14 students and 13 staff members test positive for COVID-19 in the school district.
For the two days of this week, Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 16 and 17, there is one new positive case in a student at Liberty Elementary and one staff member at LES. There is one positive staff member at College Corner Union School and one positive student at Union County High School.
There are 150 students quarantined at this time as well as 26 staff members.
While those numbers seem bad, the positivity rate for the county is down to 12 percent. It had been in the 20s, and that is why the ISDH is going to downgrade Union County from red, the worst, to orange the next to the worst.
According to Borowiak, he believes it will be appropriate to bring all extracurricular activities back on November 23, if the numbers warrant it. Also, he would like for the extracurricular activities to have their participants in pod-like structures.
Examples he used are people working on a musical to social distance and those not playing an instrument at the time during practice to mask up.
Also, another example would be for varsity basketball to use only varsity players in practice and JV practice within itself and not the JV practice with varsity. In wrestling, only certain people wrestle against each other.
These measures should be used to limit the amount of people who would have to quarantine if there is a positive test result.
There was some discussion if it is appropriate to have extracurricular activities while there are no students allowed to take classes in the school. Borowiak said he understood that opinion. However, he thinks it is important for extracurricular activities to occur for students. Board members Michael Sims and Josh Garwood spoke in favor of the extracurricular activities starting back up.
Sims said he participated in extracurricular activities as a student and has always considered them important. Garwood said students will continue to get together for social and activity reasons even with extracurricular activities shut down, but with extracurricular activities there is structure and control. The other school board members concurred with the start-up to extracurriculars.
Then, they turned to bringing students back to in-school learning.
Borowiak said one of the main reasons the decision was made to go to entire virtual learning was the lack of staff members, and he said he was not limiting staff to teachers only. There was a problem with aids being on quarantine and at one time, there was no one available to work in the cafeterias at UCMS and UCHS. Also, he mentioned custodians in the buildings being among those quarantining.
In meeting with staff at UCHS, they suggested staying virtual until the last week before Christmas break and then bring the students back for in-person finals. Another idea was staying virtual until Jan. 15, 2021.
And, of course, many want to come back to in-person learning on Nov. 30. It was said the teachers’ first choice was coming back for the in-person learning, but there was fear about having enough people to oversee classrooms and run the school.
A hybrid schedule was briefly discussed. Students come to school two days per week and have distance learning for two days a week. Fridays are reserved for students talking to teachers either in person or by remote to answer any questions they have. Students alternate the days in person and the days of virtual learning by the beginning letters of their last names with half in school and half virtual on each of the four days of schooling.
However, UC teachers said they were concerned students would fall behind in what they should be learning with that method. Currently, Franklin County Community School Corporation and Fayette County School Corporation are both using the hybrid method.
Borowiak said substitute teachers are in short supply for the same reasons as the staff members. He suggested the corporation use college students coming home for Christmas break as substitute teachers.
According to Borowiak, he will make a decision on November 23 about how the education will be handled and make an announcement at that time. That way parents and guardians will have enough time to make plans for whatever decision is made concerning November 30. School board members unanimously supported having Borowiak make the decision.