If Wednesday night’s Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board meeting is any barometer, local school officials are facing a divided community in making the tough decisions this coming school year. At the previous board session, approval was given to a proposal to start school in-person with a virtual option for families. Superintendent Allen Bourff emphasized that the plan could change.
Plans did change. An increase in positive COVID-19 tests in Fishers resulted in an announcement last week that the first month or so of school would be virtual, with the next phase possibly after Labor Day, based on the health department numbers.
There was an agenda item for board discussion, but not a vote, on “COVID-19 perparations.” Board policy allows time-limited public comment on any board agenda item. At least 12 people spoke Wednesday night, a clear majority in favor of starting school in-person, opposing the current plans for the start of the 2020-2021 school year.
Board President Michelle Fullhart then read a statement (you can listen to her read the statement during the board meeting at this link). Then Superintendent Allen Bourff presented the numbers provided by the Fishers Health Department that led to the decision to start the school year virtually.
Dr. Bourff told the board that on July 17, the health department number showed .63% of the Fishers population had tested positive, and just days later the health department reported .68% positive, with about 1100 tests yet to be processed due to a backlog.
The school corporation held a table-top COVID-19 emergency exercise with city officials which revealed a number of situations the schools had not considered.
Dr. Bourff also pointed out that the sports programs in the district have been functioning, and may provide a glimpse into what reopening school buildings may have in store.
“We have had so many (positive) cases (in the athletic program) that we have had to quarantine entire teams,” Bourff told the board. “We have had to quarantine the coaches. We don’t know but what will be the similar experience when we open schools.”
Bourff was not specific about which sports teams, grade levels or groups of coaches were under quarantine due to positive COVID-19 tests.
Fishers is showing a higher percentage of positive cases by population than the rest of Hamilton County, but Fishers is also conducting more novel coronavirus tests, Dr. Bourff said.
It was also made clear, just as it was in the previous board meeting, that changes will continue to be made. School administrators were scheduled to meet with the teachers association the day after the board meeting, which could spur more changes.
I have lived in Fishers for 29 years and have seen a number of tough issues come before the local school board. This one will be one of those issues because the community is very divided. Many agree with the majority of those speaking at the Wednesday night board meeting. Others are just as adamant that school should not start in-person until students and staff feel safe in the buildings.
I have been hearing from both sides and other views much more nuanced. I have no idea what the majority view is, if there is one, but I know the lines have been drawn.
I interviewed all the school board members currently serving on the board during their election campaigns and I can assure you no one brought up the issue of managing the 4th-largest school district in the state during a one-in-a hundred-year pandemic. There is a school board election coming up in November and I expect those candidates will be focusing on that as a major issue.
We all want what is best for our kids in school. My twin daughters attended HSE Schools grades K-12 and received a top-notch education. It is sad to see the staff and students forced to deal with such an unforeseen circumstance. Whatever decisions are made as school begins soon, whether you agree with the decisions or not, lets support the staff and the students and get through this as best we can.
“whether you agree with the decisions or not, let’s support the staff and the students and get through this as best we can.”
I just thought those words were worth repeating. 🙂
I did not watch this meeting, but I’ve heard a lot about it from friends and family today. I’m just shocked.
First of all, by the inadequacy of the plan. I get the four-stage plan; that makes sense and is quite logical. But where are the objective measure required from the schools and the community (e.g. health department statistics) that would be required to move from one step to another? Would we go back a step if those measures go the wrong way? Without bright-line measures, the plan is useless hand-waving, and the admin will be free bend to pressure from the vocal, anti-mask minority. Their primary goal must be a safe environment, without which the educational goals CANNOT be met. It’s that simple. I’m in favor of virtual learning, not until Labor Day, but as long as necessary for Hoosiers to learn to wear a mask, wash their hands, and not put their freedumbs before their responsibilities as a member of a community. We’re doing a laughably poor job of being a technologically advanced, majority Christian nation right now.
Second, the amount of derision and callousness directed at “lazy teachers that don’t want to do their job”. That’s paraphrasing a number of the community members who spoke at the meeting. It’s not that they don’t want to do their job; they don’t want to do their job in a clearly unsafe environment, for them and their students. You would not require them to teach if the building were engulfed in flames? Or would you? This spirit of anti-intellectualism has spread from hating experts and university professors down to rank-and-file public school teachers. In whatever the “Great” was that they want to make America “Again”, teachers were treated with respect, gratitude, and class…all sorely lacking in those comments and community spirit overall.
Finally, a bit of a tangent. Some people have gone online to say why their family needs the mask wearing to be iron-clad, not some waffling “suggestion”. Maybe they have an immune-compromised family member, or someone with other underlying health conditions that put them at risk. Maybe they realize that there are members of this community that are still suffering aftereffects of this virus many months after the fever went away. This is NOT the flu. But the amount of hate, and I mean deeply nasty behavior directed at these people…it’s not stuff I had ever seem before in my actual lifetime, outside of history books. I know a lot of people have to deal with that crap due to race, religion, or other factors, on a fairly consistent basis, but I had never really seen it come up on something like this. Just stunning. I’d like to think those were mostly from people outside out community, the internet being a big place; but sadly not the case. Embarrassed for our community that this sort of behavior is still acceptable to some.
Larry – thanks so much for keeping your blog going. It really the primary source for local news for many of us. I know it’s often been thankless, even frustrating. But I know there are a lot of us in Fishers that would be much worse off if not for your efforts.
To answer your qusetion about the criteria, it was on Dr. Bourff’s presention slide. To move to the next phase of reopening 2 things have to happen:
1) a 14 day downward trend in number of positive cases & percentage positive OR a 14 trend of a percentage positive below 5% on tests done in the community
2) Acceptable student and teacher attendance (I’m not 100% clear qualifies as “acceptable”)
Question about metrics so after 14 days of downtrend they go back immediately or they announce reentry. So 14 days quickly becomes easily 21 days before kids are back part time.
The official document was release yesterday to all parents. The final guildelines were posted on the HSE website.
It’s a 14 downward trend, then 14 days notice to parents of the change to the next phase. Each phase is a minimum will be 4 weeks (14 downward trend and 14 day notice). If each phase was the 4 week minimum, then full time school could resume on 11/2 at the earliest.