All Brown County schools will reopen after the Thanksgiving holiday on “green,” in-person status, Superintendent Laura Hammack announced today.

However, if COVID-tracking data shows percentages of affected students and staff per building rising past a certain level, that plan could still change, she told parents in a Facebook Live chat on Nov. 24.

Hammack and other members of the school district’s leadership team had met with the health department that evening to review the district’s return-to-school plan which had been in place since July. Some changes were made to that plan.

Instead of only tracking the percentage of students and staff who are reporting symptoms each day, district leadership is tracking two percentages: those with symptoms, as well as anyone “related to active exposure” to COVID who has to stay out of school. The second group includes anyone who was told they were a close contact, who tested positive or is awaiting test results, plus those who are showing symptoms.

All those numbers per building can now be seen publicly on the Brown County Schools website at browncountyschools.com/covid-19-updates under “Daily Metric Report.” The spreadsheet will be updated daily. It also includes the number of active COVID-19 cases at each school.

If the “related to active exposure” group at a school grows to 20 percent of a school population, that school will immediately go on “red” status, with all classes going virtual. The building can go back to “green” status, with students learning in person, when the percentage drops back below 20 percent for at least two days, the new plan says.

If 11 to 15 percent of a building population is reporting symptoms of COVID-19, then the building will move to “yellow” status, which has half of the students going to school in person on some days and learning remotely on the other days. That cuts down on the number of students in the building at one time.

A building can also go to “red” status, with 100-percent remote learning, if 16 percent or more of its students and staff are reporting symptoms of COVID-19.

A building is able to stay at “green” for in-person instruction if it can keep its symptomatic percentage at 10 percent or less, and does not go over the 20 percent threshold of people excluded from the building for any COVID-related reasons.

Any parent still has the option to switch their students to virtual by contacting their building principal.

Brown County Junior High School and Brown County High School have been the only schools in the district to move out of “green” status since classes started in August. They went directly to red from green starting Nov. 12. At that time, 24.4 percent of high school students/staff were either symptomatic, COVID positive, awaiting test results or quarantined because they were a close contact of someone who tested positive. The junior high was at 14.1 percent at the time that decision was made.

This week, the health department approved the new BCS instruction plan and the percentages that trigger decisions.

This new plan, with the 20-percent threshold to go directly to red, starts Nov. 30. It has been posted to the Brown County Schools website at browncountyschools.com/covid-19-updates under “BCS COVID-19 Educational Service Delivery Plan” and was sent to all BCS parents via ParentSquare on Nov. 25.

At this point, sports practices can restart on Nov. 30 as well. Sports and other extracurricular activities at the junior high and high schools have been shut down while the schools were at “red.” Going forward, the restrictions that apply to every Indiana county’s color code, according to the Indiana State Department of Health’s map, will determine how many people can be at a sporting or other extracurricular event, Hammack said.

The county color codes are different than the school’s color codes and are based on different metrics. The county color code map is updated each Wednesday afternoon at coronavirus.in.gov.

When attendance is limited at extracurricular events, Hammack said that the school district will work out a way to broadcast those events so they can still be seen.

Hammack stressed that if the data changes between now and Nov. 30, students might not all return on “green” for in-person instruction after Thanksgiving. District leaders are tracking symptom percentages and new case reports daily, even while students and staff are not physically in school.

The leadership team learns about new confirmed COVID-19 cases through the contact tracing process, which school nurses are primarily handling. Hammack has begun sending out ParentSquare messages whenever new cases show up in students or staff. This afternoon, a message was sent about two staff members at Brown County Intermediate School and two students at Brown County High School testing positive.

Hammack asked for help from parents in reporting symptoms that show up in their students, even while they are home, so that school leaders can accurately forecast what the school instructional plan will be day to day.

She also asked for families to do what they can outside the school setting to help mitigate the spread of the virus: follow hygiene recommendations like washing your hands often and not touching your face, wear a mask, and stay at least six feet away from people who are not in your household. “It’s those elements that can really help with our ability to continue to deliver instruction,” she said.

“There is absolutely nothing in any of us that would want to be in session if the data didn’t inform that we could safely be in session,” she said.

That’s why the plan to be back on “green” by Monday could still change.

“If the data are awful by the time we get to Monday, then we’ll make a different decision,” she said. ” … The plan is quite subject to change based on whatever the metrics are showing us. It is the metrics — two now — that are ultimately informing what level of instruction we will be realizing.”