COVID-19 arrives and schools out, eLearning is in

Due to concerns regarding the current COVID-19 outbreak, Clay Community School Corporation announced the closing of schools effective Monday, March 16. Students will be out of school until after Spring Break, which concludes on March 27. A decision of whether or not classes will resume after Spring Break will be announced later.

“The safety and well being of the students and our faculty members is the top priority at Clay Community Schools,” - Superintendent Jeff Fritz during the Thursday Board of Trustees meeting.

“The safety and well being of the students and our faculty members is the top priority at Clay Community Schools,” said Superintendent Jeff Fritz during the Thursday Board of Trustees meeting where he announced the public would be advised of plans regarding the current COVID-19 outbreak. “We are working with other school corporations in the area and local agencies regarding this matter. That’s where we recently developed Emergency preparedness MOU, which the board recently reviewed and adopted, allows us to work with other school corporations. A neighboring school corporation recently developed a mass illness plan, and we utilized this plan, tailoring it for our specific needs.”

While Fritz said he didn’t expect school closing because of the health crisis, the board of trustees was appreciative of the advance planning and implementation of the eLearning program for students in Clay County. The Indiana Department of Education has provided 20 additional days for eLearning “without any harm,” and will decide if further need to be implemented.

Fritz said he didn’t expect any schools to close during the meeting Thursday, but admitted the Coronavirus is a fluid situation and things could change. The school corporation released details Friday morning about the mass illness plan that all school-sponsored out of state trips were canceled, and all extracurricular and evening activities and events at the school would be either postponed or canceled until after Spring break.

Meanwhile, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb announced additional steps to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in Indiana.

“This is a time when we must do all we can to reduce the spread of COVID-19, protect our most vulnerable populations and reduce their potential to acquire or spread this virus,” said Gov. Holcomb. “While some actions are drastic, now, not later, is the time to act.”

Some of those actions include:

• Non-essential gatherings must be limited to no more than 250 people, including any event or group of people who are in one room or a single space at the same time, such as cafeterias, churches, stadiums, meeting and conference rooms, auditoriums and the like. • This guidance applies to professional, social, community, and similar other gatherings. Detailed guidance will be posted on the Indiana State Department of Health website by the end of the day.

• Effective immediately, school corporations will be provided with a 20-day waiver of the required 180 instructional days for use as needed for the remainder of the academic year. The waived days do not need to be used consecutively and can be leveraged as needed.

• If a school corporation has evidence of community spread or a confirmed positive test for coronavirus, officials should consult with the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Department of Health for additional steps.

The state also recommended that schools should plan now for broader closures, including eLearning and remote classroom options.

By Friday afternoon, the decision was made to close schools in Clay County, with the information provided on the school corporation website at https://in02200674.schoolwires.net/domain/8598.

“This past week, I learned a whole lot about Coronavirus that I didn’t know,” said Fritz. “We canceled and postponed a lot of things. Hopefully, that will change after Spring break when we take another look at this situation. The main thing we are working toward right now is keeping level heads. That isn’t very easy to do with all the international, national, state, and local coverage of the issue, but we are moving slowly, we are moving deliberately as things change by the hour. We have great people in place, and safety is always first here at Clay Community Schools.”

NOTE: There was some technical difficulty uploading some of the documents provided by Clay Community School Corporation. We are working on that. However, they are available on the school corporation website as well. We appreciate your patience.