Indiana “in-person” classes: how have they gone?

By Dave Taylor

Hancock County schools, along with most others in Kentucky, have followed the governor’s recommendation to begin the school year with virtual classes until September 28, but just across the river in Perry County, Indiana, students have been attending in-person classes for weeks. We asked leaders from Tell City – Troy Township, Cannelton, and Perry Central how the year has gone and what obstacles they’ve faced.
Tell City – Troy Township Schools
“From the custodial staff to the secretaries to the kids to the parents to the teachers, everybody said that this year’s start has been the smoothest they can remember,” said John Scioldo, superintendent of Tell City – Troy Township Schools.  They began classes on August 4.

“We have got, right now, great communication with our parents, our students are doing what we’ve asked them to do, and at this point we’re starting week three in session and we have yet to have a COVID case in our schools,” he said.
The district has made some changes, including installing ion generators in the HVAC system, which kills the virus in the air, as well as modifying some schedules, but the largest one is the masks, which are mandated in Indiana for any student in grade 3 and above.
“We’ve had no problems whatsoever with kids wearing masks, and of course that was the big worry,” he said.
Students are separated into small groups to aid in contact tracing should someone come down with the virus, and that means younger students through eighth grade only interact with the others in that group, and high schoolers are kept mostly to their groups aside from passing in the halls.
“We’ve got seating charts pretty much everywhere now,” Scioldo said.
Like Hancock County, Tell City gave students the option to return to in-person classes or to attend remotely via online.
“We have a few that don’t believe we should be back in school, and that’s why we’re offering the online option,” he said.
But while the ratio of in-person to virtual was around 80/20 in the beginning of the year, he said that began to change early on.
“What I can tell you is we are seeing our virtual kids that started out that way three weeks ago, they’re starting to come in to the buildings now,” he said. “And it’s just because they’ve seen what we’re doing and how we’re trying to be careful and they feel better about it now.
“I take that as a good sign of community support that somebody that was afraid is now bringing their kid back into the buildings,” he said.

The ratio of students attending in-person versus at home is now trending toward 90/10, he said.
The school day is different for students, with lunches being eaten in classrooms instead of the cafeteria, and the playground segmented to accommodate different age groups that otherwise remain separated during the day, with slight changes being made as the year progresses.

“You never know what’s going to work and not going to work till you do it, so some of these things we’ve said we’re going to do this and we do that and it sucks, or we have to tweak it a little bit,” he said. “But the teachers have been great, everybody’s just been kind of rolling with the punches.”

One thing that Tell City isn’t doing that many schools in Kentucky are is daily temperature checks.
“We talked about that, and to be real honest with you that’s a joke,” he said. “Because if I want to send my kid to school, if I don’t want him at home, I’m going to dose him with Tylenol, wait half an hour, their fever is going to come down and I’m going to send him. By the time that kid shows symptoms, gets sick at school, that kind of stuff, they’ve already been through three or four classes.
“That’s why we decided not to do temperature checks because you can falsify them so easily,” he said.

Parents are encouraged to check their kids’ temperatures daily, and the district has driven home the point that sending their kids to school while they’re sick goes against what most of them want, which is an in-person school year with the normal activities students look forward to.
“The idea there is if you want to stay in school, if you want to make sure the doors are open for your kids, for your job, for your sports, you do not send a sick kid to school,” he said.

Cannelton City Schools
Cannelton schools also opened on August 4 and have had no major problems, but they’re following a more strict protocol, which Cannelton Jr-Sr. High School principal Michael Snyder is possible because of the district’s size.
“Our class sizes for the most part are around a dozen kids, give or take, so we’re able to keep them spread out pretty well,” Snyder said.
“The procedures that we have put together have worked great so far,” he said. “We’ve only had one student that we sent home that came to school with a fever.”
Like most other schools Cannelton gave students the option to attend remotely or in-person, and about 15 percent of the students chose to stay home. But after the year began, that number grew.
“We had probably in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 students that decided after the first day of school that virtual was what they wanted to do,” he said. “So we actually did increase from about 15 percent to a little over 20, maybe close to 25 percent.”
Daily temperature checks are done at the school before students enter the building.
“We take temperatures of all the students before they enter the school building every single day,” he said.
But again, they’re able to do it when the largest student group is less than 100 kids at the jr-sr high school.
“If it’s 1,000 kids that you’re doing that with, it’d take forever,” he said.
Students have been cooperative in wearing their masks too, which are supplied by the school to those who need them.
“Our kids seem to really understand and they’ve embraced the fact that if they’re going to be here that’s just the way it’s got to be,” he said.
In the event that a student or staff member contracts the virus, those who have been near that person will be quarantined with remote learning while the rest of the school continues on.
Remote students who didn’t have internet have been given financial help to get access, with the school designating some of its federal CARES Act funds to help pay for it.

Perry Central Community Schools
Perry Central Community Schools are only in their second week after starting the year on August 11, but superintendent Tara Bishop said things have gone well to this point.
“Our students have been fantastic,” Bishop said. “They wear their masks, they aren’t complaining. They’re doing really, really, really well.”
The state supplied one mask per student and the district bought another, with the PC logo on it, and gave them out.
Some had been exposed to people outside the school who had the virus so they’re in quarantine, but the district knew that might come so they planned ahead.
“The numbers haven’t been big, but it is happening and will continue to happen. We know that,” she said. “We kind of expected that going in so we worked really hard to develop a plan that provided some protocol for what to do when that happens.”
The schools have two different nurses offices, one for normal needs and another for people who think they might have symptoms. They’re checked out, and if they do show any possible symptoms they’re sent home. If they test positive, those who’ve been exposed are also checked and quarantined.
Perry Central isn’t doing daily temperature checks.
“We read a lot of the guidance and things that were coming out of different states and there were pros and cons to temperature checking everybody,” she said. “One of the cons is that you’re going to have a lot of kids congregating in one area, which is one of the things you’re trying to avoid. And so we just felt like it made more sense to do that piece at home and really educate parents and families on keeping children home if they’re sick.”
About 18 percent of Perry Central students elected to attend online, and those students can only switch up to attend in-person at the end of each quarter, which correlates to the report card schedule.
“That’s one of the reasons we did it is because it just kind of keeps things clean in terms grading and reporting,” she said.
So far, students, parents and the community seem content with how the year is progressing.
“We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about how well it has gone these first six days,” she said. “There’s something every day we have to work through and try to figure out you know, but by and large, none of us can believe how well it’s gone.
“We were prepared for the worst and it’s gone really well,” she said.
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