Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.’s COVID-19 data release allowed many in the community to take a deep sigh of relief.
On Aug. 20, Superintendent Jim Roberts shared information regarding positive coronavirus cases and contact tracing at BCSC for the first time since school started on Aug. 10.
Roberts said there have been eight positive COVID-19 tests of students and staff members within the BCSC community, but of those eight, only two were actually in school around other individuals, causing the need for BCSC contact tracing. Nine individuals were identified as “close contacts” of those two individuals based on seating charts, bus charts or other information about extended periods of time the individuals may have been near them. Close contacts may also refer to the individuals’ family members, including siblings.
On Friday, Roberts identified which buildings have recorded cases, and also said that an additional 125 individuals from BCSC have been quarantined due to exposure to COVID-19 cases outside of the school system and its buildings.
Ideally, there would be no positive cases in the schools. However, looking at the bigger picture — and at some other school districts across the state — BCSC is in solid shape to start the school year.
There was never a question of whether or not there would ever be a positive case in BCSC. BCSC has 13,000 people within its community, including 11,000 students and an estimated 2,000 employees. Positive cases will occur with in-person learning no matter how many precautions are taken, so the objective is to minimize and identify cases as fast as possible.
The numbers provided by Roberts aren’t cause for any major concerns. By providing transparency, BCSC not only squashed any rumors, but showed they’re doing a solid job of reopening.
The biggest issue that parents and other community members held was that it appeared the school was withholding information. Without notification to the public about the number of positive cases, and changing its online dashboard arrangement, tensions started coming to a head this past week.
Many felt that there was no way of knowing if sending their kids to school every day was safe without the numbers.
There’s still a lot of work to do as it pertains to keeping the public informed.
However, local schools — and the state — are moving in the right direction.
Dr. Kristina Box, commissioner of the state health department, said Indiana will start matching COVID-19 tests to student records to notify schools of positive cases and create a public dashboard tracking the spread of the virus in schools. The hope is to have the dashboard live in September.
Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp. has been ahead of the curve.
Every Friday, Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp. plans to update its website with the number of COVID-19 cases at Hauser Jr./Sr. High School and Hope Elementary, as well as the number of student referrals for “failure to properly wear mask” and “failure to social distance” at both schools.
While two weeks is a small sample size, it’s encouraging to see that mitigation efforts seem to be working at local schools. Some schools across the state didn’t make it two weeks before having to shift to online learning.
Moving forward, local schools need to continue to strive to provide as much information as they possibly can.
