By LAURA HAMMACK, guest columnist
The Indiana Department of Education, in coordination with the Office of the Governor, the Indiana State Department of Health and the Indiana Family and Social Service Administration (FSSA), released a guidance document for school districts titled, “Indiana’s Considerations for Learning and Safe Schools — IN-CLASS.” This document details health and safety re-entry guidance for school year 2020-2021.
As expected, the guidance is comprehensive. Across 38 pages, Indiana school districts are provided with information to effectively prepare operations for a successful return to school. As with everything related to the coronavirus pandemic, the document cautions that the situation is still fluid. In less than two months, we will return to school. We understand that the landscape for the pandemic will evolve, just as it has from two months prior to today. And, as we learn more, our plans will be responsive to the same.
As mentioned in my previous column, Brown County Schools convened a Return to School Task Force. This team of faculty and staff have been preparing for a safe and efficient return to school from an instructional, health and safety, and operational point of view. Now that we have guidance from our state leaders, we can refine our plans so that a return to school is safe and reasonable for all school community stakeholders.
We intend to prepare our plans for comprehensive review by the Brown County Health Department and our school counsel so that, upon publication and approval from the Brown County Schools Board of School Trustees, we can be confident that the plan is built for success.
School districts have been tasked with keeping two key factors at the foundation for all return to school decision making: 1) the school’s ability to maintain a safe and healthy school environment, and 2) the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community.
While we are thrilled to receive this news, we are also very serious about ensuring that our schools are prepared to welcome students, faculty and staff to a safe and healthy school environment. The recommendations offered in the IN-CLASS document are to be used as a guide, understanding that not all districts have the same needs, capacity and resources. Therefore, there may be recommendations that, with approval from the Brown County Health Department, we deem to not be appropriate for our school district. Other recommendations will, unquestionably, be included in our response plan.
Within our plans, we have been asked to consider comprehensive guidance related to health protocols, social distancing, extra-curricular and co-curricular activities, transportation, vulnerable student and employee populations, special education services, staff professional development, confirmed case response plans and the school calendar. If you are interested in reviewing the guidance document in its entirety, you can access it here: https://www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/news/june-5-class-document.pdf.
Clearly, we have a lot of work to do to be prepared for students to return to school on Aug. 5. However, we are working very hard to be prepared. There is no question that there will be strategies that we get right within our reopening plan and there will be strategies that are far from perfect. It is important to understand that every selected strategy will be made in the best interest of the students and the staff of Brown County Schools.
We can’t wait to see our students and staff return to school! While “back to school” will surely look and feel different than in years past, we pledge to deploy strategies that will fulfill our mission to provide the highest quality educational experiences where students feel safe, valued, inspired, civically engaged and globally connected.
Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6606 or [email protected].
