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Plan for increasing middle and high school students to 4 days per week of in-person learning. Click the image for a larger version.

Based on improving internal and community COVID-19-related data, the Vigo County School Corporation is working to move all middle and high school students to a four-day-per-week in-person learning schedule. Under this plan, Monday will still be a remote learning day for all middle and high school students, and all students who chose in-person learning this year will attend school Tuesday through Friday. The plan has been developed with consultation from the Vigo County School Corporation COVID-19 Task Force, the Vigo County Health Department, and several local healthcare leaders.

Middle school students will attend school four days per week starting on Tuesday, March 2. High school students will start a four-day-per-week schedule on Tuesday, March 9. The plan was approved in Monday night’s board meeting.

The move to more in-person learning for middle and high school students is focused on improving the academic success and mental health of students. The district will retain Monday as a remote learning day for middle and high school students to continue to practice remote learning and to allow for contact tracing for weekend cases.

“This is an opportunity for us to refocus on our mitigation strategies,” said Dr. Rob Haworth, superintendent of schools. “Our continued defense against the spread of the virus at school coupled with lower community spread has brought us to this day, and we must continue to be safe.”

Student mental health continues to be a concern. In January 2021, the district saw a 83% increase over January 2020 in school-based crisis assessments. By February 10, 2021, the district had already reached the February 2020 total for school-based crisis assessments.

The Vigo County School Corporation has an additional tool to combat the spread of COVID-19. The district has begun testing symptomatic staff members–who are still staying home when symptomatic–using BinaxNOW rapid antigen tests. 

The district has studied districts with large high schools like Brownsburg, Avon, and Plainfield–schools with students who have attended school 5 days per week–and has concluded that community spread, not educational model, is the largest driver of cases in the school setting. Other large districts who have been in an A/B schedule at the secondary level like Bartholomew County and Seymour have already announced similar plans to move to full in-person instruction. The district continues to see minimal spread within school settings, including at the elementary level where students attend each day. While quarantine numbers may increase, the district and schools will develop the best possible plans for high traffic situations like lunch.

“We support the idea of a staggered return to in-person learning for middle and high school students as community case numbers and local hospitalization rates continue to hold steady,” said Dr. Darren Brucken, Vigo County Health Commissioner. “The benefits to students in regards to academics, mental health, and interpersonal relationships with our teachers is undeniable. Continued mitigation strategies of distancing and masking will be strictly observed, and we will continue to monitor community case numbers and work together to contact trace cases.”

All schools within Vigo County will be monitored, and staff availability will continue to be the most important indicator of when a school may need a period of remote learning.

Rules for Vigo County School Corporation athletic events will not change at this time, and each participating athlete will still be allotted 4 tickets per contest.

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The Vigo County School Corporation will continue to work with the VCSC COVID-19 Task Force, the Vigo County Teachers Association, and local public health and healthcare leaders to determine the educational model offered on Monday, January 4, with the hope of offering as much in-person learning as possible at that time.

Title I pre-Kindergarten programs are also postponed until at least Monday, January 4.

Free grab-and-go meals will be available at the front door of each school from 11-noon each remote learning day. The package will include a breakfast and a lunch.

WiFi-enabled buses will be dispatched throughout the county, and a list at vigoschools.org will be updated with times and locations. All VCSC buildings have internet that can be accessed from the parking lot.

The central administration building and general services buildings are closed to the public until Monday, December 7 due to a lack of available staff to respond to visitors to the building. Many staff members in those buildings continue to work on site. People who need to contact the central administrative building can call 812-462-4011 and leave a message.

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“We’re not currently experiencing issues with contact tracing, but we want to be cautious,” said Dr. Rob Haworth, superintendent. “Our ability to keep students and staff safe relies on contact tracing and quarantines. We do not want students or staff to walk into our buildings on Monday mornings if they should be at home.”

High school is of greatest concern due to the complicated nature of contact tracing the cases, due to the number of classes students take with a diverse group of students and staff.

The district will also rely on remote learning during inclement weather this winter, and these remote learning Mondays will give staff and students a chance to practice.

Starting on Tuesday, October 27, North and South Vigo High Schools will be utilizing their auditoriums during lunch to allow for greater distancing between students. West Vigo High School is already successfully using the Green Dome during lunch.

Teachers will be working from their buildings on Mondays, and may choose to hold Google Meet sessions with students or post work to Canvas for students to complete. The remote learning schedule has been posted under the high school tab of the section “Current Educational Model” at vigoschools.org.

Students are welcome to use the WiFi outside of any VCSC building, and the district’s WiFi buses will be dispatched throughout the day. A schedule for these buses will be shared with students later this weekend.

Free grab and go meals for high school students will be available from 11-noon in front of North and South Vigo High Schools and Noon-1 p.m. in front of West Vigo High School for high school students who would like a meal.

Click here: Remote Learning Schedule

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The plan was developed with the input of the COVID-19 Task Force and the Vigo County Teachers Association, and is based on limited spread within our school buildings due to mitigation procedures such as required masking, encouraged distancing, and enhanced sanitizing. We will continue to mask at all times, distance as much as possible, and sanitize surfaces throughout the day, as well as guide students and staff to wash their hands and use hand sanitizer throughout the building. We will continue to offer fully-at-home options for all students who need them.

While the number of our school corporation’s positive cases continues to impress our healthcare leaders, numbers are rising in Vigo County. A member of our staff visits the health department every day, and their contact tracing reveals that most community cases are coming from large social gatherings and households. Yesterday, the health department publicly noted that while numbers are growing in Vigo County, our schools are holding steady. Yesterday, we reported that we have 4 active cases among staff and students at the high school level and only 3 at the middle school level. Yesterday, we also announced that out of nearly 13,000 in-person staff and students, we have 17 active cases, and 17 of our 27 brick and mortar schools reported no active cases.

While our numbers have been better than our community’s, our families and school staff are the reason for our success. Please continue to stay home if you experience symptoms and remember that many attendance policies are suspended this year. If your child or someone your child shares a home with is awaiting the results of a test–other than routine testing required by some employers–please stay home. Please continue to act responsibly outside of our schools, and we will continue to enforce protocols such as masking, maximizing our distance, and enhanced sanitation. A link to our return-to-school guidelines can be found at the end of this e-mail.

As a product of this decision, we join all but one Conference Indiana high school and all but one of the Western Indiana Conference high schools (Edgewood is attending 4 days per week starting Monday) in attending 5 days per week.

Our athletics will continue with their restrictions, including reduced capacities. Athletic teams, despite the contact nature of some sports, have experienced very few cases since they started in July. This gives us hope.

We will now be monitoring COVID-19 on a school-by-school basis. If our educational model seems to be making an impact on our community’s health, we will pull back. We are in constant contact with our community’s health care leaders who are treating COVID-19 patients every day. We take their advice to heart, and right now, they support a return to a five-day-per-week schedule. We have limited spread in our schools due to contact tracing and quarantining students who may have been at risk, and our ability to keep up with these efforts will tell us if we can stay in school full time.

Please consider using bus transportation more. Our buses are not carrying many students at this time and our returning elementary schools are reporting long lines at pick-up and drop-off. If you have not been using bus transportation, please call the transportation office at 812-462-4243 as your pick-up/drop-off times may have been adjusted since the beginning of the year.

Our athletic programs will continue with their safety protocols and reduced capacities. The limited number of cases in our athletic teams–who have been fully competing and practicing since this summer–gives us confidence in returning our students to a full schedule.

There is an early release day on Tuesday, October 20. Elementary students will dismiss at 1:45, and middle/high school students will dismiss at 2:30.

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“If your student has never tried our breakfast, this is a great time to start,” said Tom Lentes, director of food services. “We are grateful to this USDA program and encourage all students—even those learning from home—to take advantage of these free meals.”

Meals purchased after August 18 will be credited back to the child’s account. The district started the program today, and reimbursement retroactive to August 18 will take several weeks as Vigo County School Corporation Food Services works with their software vendor to reconcile the charges.

Meals are available for students learning from home—traditional students on their remote learning day, and fully-at-home hybrid or virtual students—by calling the school and speaking to the kitchen manager.

Those who qualify for free/reduced lunch are still encouraged to go to www.myschoolapps.com and complete an application, so that they can receive textbook fee assistance and are enrolled in the program when the USDA program ends on December 31.

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The crew collaborated with area churches, not-for-profit organizations, and county government employees to create a grab-and-go meal service that delivered a breakfast and lunch for every Vigo County child who wanted meals, five days per week.

By the end of the summer, they served 327,012 meals to Vigo County children.

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