Dubois County Schools Reopen Wednesday as State Finds More Parents Are Uneasy About Sending Their Kids Back

FROM LOCAL SOURCES

JASPER -- Students in Dubois County will return to class Wednesday, either online or in-person.

To keep students safe, kids will be assigned seats in classrooms, on buses and in the cafeteria. Seats will also be spaced out to maintain proper social distancing. Masks will be required when students can't socially distance and high touch areas through the school will be cleaned and sanitized daily.

Read the entire reopening plan HERE.... https://www.gjcs.k12.in.us/back-to-school-plan

The reopening comes as Indiana School Superintendent Jennifer McCormick admits parents are feeling increasingly unsafe about sending their children to school.

“In June, when we polled, many of our districts had 20-30% of our families that said they felt unsafe, and were going to opt for the virtual option,” McCormick said. “Now, fast forward, those numbers aren’t looking good and the trends are going up -- that percentage is higher.”

McCormick says she believes the biggest struggle for schools is contact tracing, primarily because the process requires a lot of people to help out. As a result, McCormick admits the pandemic has been a struggle, but maintains that she and other health departments are "watching things closely."

"It is very different in some of our rural areas versus some of our urban, more populated areas," McCormick said. "We're watching the positivity rates, we're watching the trends, we're watching closely the regional activity."

McCormick also discussed the President's threat to withhold federal funding to schools that do not reopen for in-person classes. She called the threat "unhelpful."

“This week, our governor’s office and our general assembly came out, and there’s a little bit of squabble over reducing funding if we don’t open our doors,” McCormick said on CNN Sunday. “You have a lot of health departments put in the middle of that, and a lot local superintendents put in the middle of that. I was a local superintendent. I would not appreciate the threat of money being held over my head during a pandemic.”