The Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. recently underwent yet another shift in learning as the school year continues amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
BCSC began its new semester on Jan. 5 with in-person learning for elementary students and a hybrid schedule for secondary students.
“It felt like a fresh start again, and we’re glad to have the kids back in the building,” said superintendent Jim Roberts.
Virtual options have also remained in place for students at both levels. As of Jan. 5, Roberts said that 993 elementary students are enrolled in the remote BRIDGE option and 106 are enrolled in the more long-term Columbus Virtual Pathway remote option.
By comparison, 926 elementary students were enrolled in BRIDGE in early December. Roberts said the figure was about the same before the districtwide move to eLearning. A total of 114 elementary students were enrolled in CVP in early December.
“We are working to move away from CVP at the elementary level,”Roberts said. “Again, pretty low participation rate, and we just prefer the BRIDGE model in terms of our ability to manage the instruction for that model. But it is still an option for us. It still exists.”
As for secondary students, the number of virtual learners is still being finalized, Roberts said. He said that reports from secondary principals indicate an increase of 20 students moving to virtual options, which he called a “negligible change.”
He said that it’s taking more time to finalize the secondary students’ numbers for two reasons. One is that secondary students are making these changes by working with their respective guidance counselors, rather than using a portal system like the elementary students. The other is that having only about half of students in each building at a time has “complicated the effort to finalize who is actually in-person versus virtual.”
The hybrid learning schedule splits students into two groups by last name. Secondary students with surnames A-K attend in person on Monday and Tuesday and do eLearning Wednesday through Friday. Secondary students L-Z do eLearning Monday through Wednesday and attend in person Thursday and Friday.
While the hybrid model was approved by the school board in October, BCSC chose not to implement it during community spread increases in November and instead moved to districtwide eLearning. At the time, Roberts said that the hybrid model would not address staffing issues caused by COVID-19 cases and resulting close contacts.
However, as of Jan. 5, he said that the school corporation was in “good shape” when it came to staffing classrooms. He said that on the first day of the new semester, about 100 students and 20 staff members were out of school due to either being a positive case or close contact.
School officials said that, as of Jan. 8, the school corporation had seen 417 COVID-19 positive cases since August. This number includes 247 student cases, 127 staff cases and 43 teacher cases.
Roberts noted that when BCSC moved to eLearning in November, there had been problems staffing classrooms and buses. In late 2020, the school corporation advertised openings for bus drivers and substitute teachers.
“We had 115 interest forms completed for substitute teachers,” Roberts said. “…Of that number, I don’t know yet how many we’re going to have or be able to put in a classroom.”
As for transportation, director of operations Brett Boezeman said that there are eight people in training to drive buses. However, he added that the process can take about four to six weeks, from the time of an interview to the point where an individual would be ready to drive a bus with kids on it.
Boezeman said that morning bus routes went well on the first day back, though there were a few delays due to staffing shortages. Roberts said that not all of the route delays were related to COVID-19.
He also said that a couple of drivers found that their thermometers didn’t work, and he noted that some route times might be different due to kids returning from BRIDGE to in-person learning.
“Overall, it was a great morning,” Boezeman said. “…There’s always a few bumps off of the holiday break, of course, but considering we haven’t run full routes since early November, it was very smooth.”
Boezeman said that BCSC has resumed running all bus routes as normal. The one exception is that they are not running secondary routes on Wednesdays, since all secondary students have eLearning on that day.
He also noted that BCSC continued running a number of buses during districtwide eLearning to accommodate certain needs, including meal service, Pre-K, Legado, special needs and C4 programs.
Roberts said that he’s “glad” to see students back in schools and hopes that secondary students will get to move back to five days of in-person learning soon. BCSC has said that it will continue hybrid learning for secondary schools until at least Jan. 15.
Roberts did note that the new model means extra work for secondary teachers and said that the school corporation had an optional teacher work day on Jan. 4 where educators could prepare for the first day back.
He shared that leaders from various BCSC schools have sent in positive feedback about their excitement over seeing kids again and kids’ excitement over being back in person.
“It seems to have been smooth-sailing,” Roberts said. “We have tremendous staff members. Our administrators are prepared, and our teachers are excellent instructors.”
