Madison High School in Madison, Indiana

MADISON, Ind. (WDRB) -- In Madison, Indiana, the local consolidated school district is closing the chapter on a school year like no other Thursday. 

Madison Consolidated Schools is a district with around 2,500 students. Like districts of all sizes, this one was also forced to make changes to the school year because of COVID-19 safety measures. 

"I'm going to categorize this as a highly successful year," Superintendent Jeff Studebaker said.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Studebaker said students in Madison attended in-person classes for the majority of the year. 

"I'm proud of our district in terms of what we've done this year," he said. "I would love to know how our in-person days stack up with anyone else in the state, because we've been in more than we've been out."

Studebaker said the district opened in August as scheduled, but classroom layouts were changed with large spaces between desks. Masks were also required throughout the school year.

The district only had around 10% of students who opted to learn online, and that number decreased as the school year continued, according to Studebaker.

One building had to shut down around fall break because of the pandemic, the superintendent said. 

"The rest of the year we had a classroom here and a classroom there we had to put in quarantine and we had another building, maybe two, we had to shut down in February," Studebaker said. "But that also coincided with a weather shutdown." 

Overall, Studebaker said the district saw fewer cases of the flu or common cold and had good attendance because of the increased health and safety measures in place.

All students will return in-person next school year, because there will not be a full-time online option offered, Studebaker said. It's unclear exactly what COVID-19 guidance and protocols will look like when school starts again in the fall.

"I imagine we'll have something going on with masking and surface cleaning," Studebaker said.

The school board recently approved $8 million worth of projects for the district, including solar panels at the high school and an addition at Anderson Elementary School. To learn more about those projects, click here.

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