Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. expects about 800 students to return to in-person learning after fall break after reviewing responses to a recent survey, school officials said. Of this number, more than 600 are elementary students.
Superintendent Jim Roberts said that the school corporation recently sent out surveys to BCSC families participating in remote learning regarding their plans after fall break, which is scheduled for Oct. 5 through 9.
In August, Roberts reported that there were 8,242 students enrolled in in-person learning. He said at Monday’s school board meeting that the BCSC is "inching toward" having about 9,000 students in school buildings.
He also said that as remote learners return to in-person, remote-only teachers will also be able to return to schools, which should help keep the student to teacher ratio at a "manageable" level.
Roberts acknowledged that the move from remote to in-person learning will add to the already difficult task of social distancing in schools.
“We’ll have to eat up that square footage that’s in each of our buildings as creatively as possible," he said.
In order to address social distancing challenges, as well as the challenges faced by teachers serving both in-person and remote students, BCSC is removing elementary students’ flexibility to move back and forth between learning options, Roberts said.
Following fall break, elementary students will have to stay committed to one mode of learning for the rest of the semester — whether it be in-person, BRIDGE or Columbus Virtual Pathway.
"This is only elementary that I’m talking about, as we continue to wrestle with some of the complexities of secondary teaching and just scheduling," Roberts said.
For the time being, BCSC will continue to offer both BRIDGE and CVP as remote options. However, Roberts said that the school corporation is looking to change that in the future.
“As we go forward, we would like to reduce those two options to one," he said. "… We do realize that that answer of which option is best, based upon grade level, may be different. So it may be likely that the remote option for elementary students would be BRIDGE, and the remote option for secondary students would be CVP."
Roberts said that he doesn’t know, at this time, if the reduction of remote options could occur by next semester.
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To learn more about Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. options for students, visit bcscschools.org/.
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