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Dear Editor:
Just as we all want and expect to drive to the places we go, we need to wear seat belts to get there safely since we’re not crash-test dummies. Conversely, smokers don’t want to give up the comfort of smoking but recognize the need to quit for their health. Sometimes we need to do things and sometimes we need to stop doing things to benefit our longevity.
This COVID-19 pandemic has thrust upon us an important new dichotomy of wants vs. needs: Every single parent, teacher, administrator, lunch person, custodian, bus driver, you name it wants children back in the classroom as soon as possible. We need to do it safely.
Leading up to last Friday’s working session meeting with the school board, the HSE administration and the superintendent had done a decent job balancing these safety needs with the universal want of getting kids back to school in-person with the following plan based on 3 phases of virtual-to-classroom instruction over time, with advancement from one phases to the next based on 4 conditions of community virus severity and trend:
Notice the plan specifically states the district will NOT progress to Phase II “until the conditions have been met.”
What are the appropriate conditions? Here are the guidelines:
Here we finally have what should be the answer to whether or not schools should be able to move to Phase II with 50/50 instruction: “To progress to the next phase, the Community COVID Risk Rating needs to be at Level 1 (green) or at Level 2 (yellow) trending towards Level 1 (green).”
So where were we the morning of Aug. 21? From the referenced “City of Fishers Risk Rating System”:
As you can see, as of the morning of the 21st, the community was not only NOT in the green OR yellow, but the trend was heading AWAY from those colors. Consequently,
The administration’s and superintendent’s decision to move to Phase II and 50/50 instruction, supported unanimously by the school board, is in direct opposition to the stated guidelines written BY the administration.
Regardless of the polarized feelings weighing on the decisions to return to school, the facts in this case are that the administration misled the community by approving the advancement to Phase II without the appropriate safety conditions being met.
We want our kids back in school. We need answers as to how this dismissal of safety guidelines will affect the health of all involved during this pandemic in the HSE school system.
Grant Lansdell
Parent and Taxpayer in HSE School District