LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The conversation about reopening schools in southern Indiana changes by the community and the day.
On Tuesday, schools in the New Albany-Floyd County school district were preparing to reopen as some district leaders in neighboring Greater Clark County said it's time to rethink in person classes.
"I'm not sure we have the staffing necessary to do this to the best of our ability," Mark Felix, president of the Greater Clark Education Association, said in an interview with WDRB News. "We're struggling."
Felix said he would be surveying his teachers/members this week with plans to meet and present the data to GCCS Superintendent Mark Laughner on Friday.
"I know its hard. The staff and teachers are working tirelessly right now, and they're just overwhelmed by all the changes coming at them," Felix said. "The online instruction is not as easy as people think it is ... We've got teachers claiming to be working 14-16 hour days preparing online and in-person instruction."
Greater Clark was the first sizable district in southern Indiana to test in-person instruction. In the first two weeks, the district confirmed COVID-19 cases at six schools, including Pleasant Ridge Elementary School in Charlestown, which closed to in-person instruction this week due to the number of staff members in quarantine. Felix said many teachers want to continue in-person education, but the district doesn't have the substitutes to deal with the ripple effect of staffers in and out of the classroom, and hundreds of families have shifted from in-person to online.
"My personal opinion is it won't be sustainable (to stay open) if the counts on the virus continue to rise," he said.
Parts of GCCS borders the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corporation.
Grant Line Elementary School Principal Tamara Swarens admits what's happening in the community right next door is a concern as NAFC heads back to in-person instruction Wednesday.
"We're just worried about student safety and want to make sure we have all of our safety procedures in place," Swarens said. "I think the best thing we can do is just follow medical guidelines and what our health department is telling us."
In Swarens' school, classrooms have about 20 desks pushed from the front board to the back wall. Most bookshelves and tables are gone. A handful of classes remain in seated pods but with plexiglass separation. Swarens said those teachers received a grant for the added equipment.
Throughout the school community, supplies are gone. That means crayons, pencils and notebooks are not shared.
Tamara Swarens, the principal at Grant Line Elementary
"Now, each child will have their own personal container to chose from," Swarens said. "We are one-to-one on technology, so every student will have a Chromebook or an iPad."
In the hallway, X's on the ground mark where students can stand in line for the restroom.
The temperatures of all faculty and staff members will be checked at the start of every school day. Students' temperatures will be checked at random, with about 100 checks a day.
In the cafeteria, every other seat is marked with an X, meaning a student can't sit there due to required social distancing and because of that limited space. The school gym is also now an eating space where only two students will be assigned per table.
"I'm so excited. Like my outfit has been picked out for weeks," 8-year-old Niya Demoss said. "I just cant wait to see all my friends again and my new teacher. Everything, everything about it ... I'm so excited for everything."
8-year-old Niya Demoss
Niya said she doesn't mind wearing a mask, but her mom worries about the other third-graders.
"I'm a little apprehensive, but the kids need some kind of normalcy in their life," said Shaina Demoss, Niya's mother. "She was miserable when school closed, so there was no way I couldn't' send her back."
NAFC gave families the option to attend in-person or online in the pandemic. Education looks a little different by grade. K-6 will go in-person every day. Grades 7-12 return on block schedules, attending in-person either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday, with all of those students learning virtual on Fridays.
School leaders promised online instruction will be more rigorous this time around than when schools shut down in March.
"Our students from home will be connected to the teacher every day during direct instruction," Swarens said.
NAFC leaders estimate 80% of the district's students to come back in person Wednesday. That's about 9,000 kids.
Felix had some advice for school districts preparing to reopen:
"Train your teachers as soon as possible on the technology," he said. "And make sure you have as many people hired as possible for subs because you will face that eventually."
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