By John Estridge
Seventy-one people participated through Zoom in the Union County College Corner Joint School District Board of Trustees special meeting Thursday night, July 30, to make changes to the corporation’s re-entry plan. About another 10 people were masked up and in the audience.
Numbers of known positive cases in Union County have gone up recently. Two of the new cases are children of school age, UCCCJSD Superintendent Aron Borowiak said.
There were a couple of major areas of change to the plan that was initially adopted on Monday, July 13.
One was due to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive order on mandatory masks. Borowiak said the governor’s executive order on masks runs through August 26. However, it can be extended.
Students must wear masks on buses, in classes, where social distancing is not possible, and while changing classes. The only exceptions are students with physician notes, special education-related reasons, recess and physical education classes.
Face coverings can be masks, scarves and face shields.
Second is a change on when a student can come back to school after being ill. When the re-entry plan was passed on July 13, the recommended amount of time for a student to be allowed to go back to school after having a fever was 72 hours after the child had a normal temperature without the use of fever-reducing medication.
Now due to a change in the Centers for Disease Control guidelines, the new recommended amount is 24 hours.
However, there is another clause in the re-entry plan where it says if a person has symptoms that relate to COVID-19 symptoms, then the child must stay home 10 days from the first date the symptoms appeared. And the COVID-19 symptoms are wide ranging. According to the information the school gave out, COVID-19 symptoms include: congestion or runny nose, fever of 100.4 or higher, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, diarrhea, nausea, sore throat, muscle pain, chills and new loss of taste or smell. Under the symptoms, it says it usually presents with more than one symptom.
A person on Zoom and board member Jessica Jones said the two statements seem incongruous and confusing. Board president Mary Eversole said maybe they could insert the words “and/or.”
Borowiak explained how the school will be in daily communication with the Union County Department of Health (UCDH). This is helped because the school nurse, Lori West, is also the president of the UCDH.
Then, Borowiak talked about how it is supposed to work if a student tests positive for the virus. The parent will contact the school corporation. The school then notifies the Indiana Department of Health (IDH) and the tracing department within the IDH. The school corporation then identifies the students and/or staff who have been in close contact with the student testing positive. The IDH then contacts those who have been identified as in close contact, and they are tested. If one of those test positive, then it all begins again.
A close contact is defined as anyone who was within six feet of the person testing positive for more than 15 minutes in the two days before the symptoms were revealed. In that case, the students and/or teachers will have to self quarantine for 14 days.
Siblings of the student who tested positive are considered close contacts, and they also have to self quarantine for 14 days. However, those students around the siblings, considered to be close contacts, do not have to self quarantine.
One board member said their spouse recently tested positive. The IDH tracking department did not contact the family for 16 days after the positive test. When the school board member stated the number of days to the person from IDH calling her, the tracking person said she did not have to ask any questions because of the time delay. The school board member asked why there was a delay, and the IDH employee said they have been inundated with positive results.
Union County Health Nurse Kim Klein was on Zoom and made some comments in answer to this situation. However, only the school board members with headsets could hear Klein. Eversole said she would repeat what Klein said, but did not do that.
Apparently, the IDH is putting new protocols in place for the opening of school, and it will hopefully take care of the delay situation.
Also, West said if a student refuses to take a test for the virus, there is nothing the school corporation can do. It is within the student and parents/guardians right to refuse to take the test.
After more discussion, the board voted unanimously to approve the changes. Board members and Borowiak emphasized this is a fluid situation with changes happening almost daily so there is a high probability the board will be back in amending the plan in the future.
Following the vote, board member Mike Sims brought up athletics. He said he cannot wrap his mind around young people banging around on each other not wearing masks and not able to social distance. He said other people have asked him about it, and he doesn’t have answers for them. He said the governor or someone seems to have their priorities in the wrong order.
Eversole said she understood what Sims was saying and maybe there would be a point where sports or certain sports will not be allowed to go forth.
Jones was concerned the teachers do not have enough time to prepare for this challenging school year and wanted the teachers to have more time. However, Borowiak and others said the adding of more days is something that is bound by the contract with the teachers and cannot be arbitrarily changed.
There are 160 students who chose the online method of schooling, and that is 13 percent of the corporation’s student enrollment.
Board member Darrel Harvey was concerned about the number of children in the kindergarten classes due to the need to social distance. He was told there are 24 and 25 students at the kindergarten classes in College Corner, but that does include the five students who chose the online method. At Liberty, the two classes have 21 students each. But those numbers do not include the nine who are online.
Registration is still ongoing.
Harvey said that is a lot of students per class especially in this unusual situation.
First student day in school is Wednesday, August 12.