GREENFIELD — Greenfield-Central school officials will announce the district’s fall reopening plan at a special school board meeting Monday, July 6.
The meeting will take place at 4:30 p.m. at the Educational Services Center at 700 N. Broadway St. in Greenfield.
Superintendent Harold Olin said that once school board members discuss and finalize the plan at Monday’s meeting, the details will be posted on the corporation’s website shortly thereafter.
On Monday, June 29, Southern Hancock became the first county district to announce its reopening strategy, releasing its 26-page “Blueprint for Reentry.” The detailed plan outlines procedures for everything on how desks will be arranged in classrooms to how lunch periods will be scheduled. It also outlines the district’s plans for virtual learning.
Olin said the Greenfield-Central School Board decided at its June meeting it still had some details to work out in its own fall reentry plan. The meeting Monday will give members a chance to do that.
“We’ve got some information the board will just need to weigh in on before we make some things official, but you’re not going to see anything drastically different” from what other corporations are doing, he said.
Greenfield-Central schools will resume on July 30. Parents will have the option of sending their children to school or allowing them to continue taking classes online for now. Social distancing and sanitizing measures will be in force at all school buildings, Olin said.
The corporation has collected feedback from parents in two surveys in recent weeks, and those responses have been taken into consideration in planning for the 2020-21 school year, he said.
“All our efforts have really focused on this reentry planning and what it’s going to look like from a curriculum and operational standpoint,” Olin said.
“You’re not going to see anything drastically different from us that you’re going to see from my peers in Hancock County,” he said, referencing a joint letter distributed by the superintendents from all four Hancock County school districts on June 26.
In the letter, school officials said they are working closely with each other and the Hancock County Health Department to craft guidelines for the return to school, and that all county schools were on track to resume classes on their scheduled start dates.
The superintendents said each school system collaborated with the county health department after reviewing guidance on school reopenings laid out by the Indiana Department of Education. Since then, officials in each district have been working on their individual reentry plans.
Southern Hancock’s plan outlines policies on when masks will be required; maintaining social distancing; and how schools will respond when an infection occurs. The blueprint covers every aspect of activity in the schools, including transportation and after-school activities.
Southern Hancock’s virtual learning strategy will be much different than the one put in place at the beginning of the pandemic in March. It envisions students attending class full time online instead of the limited lessons students received in the spring. Students will be required to check in online to have their attendance taken, as well.
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What: Special meeting of the Greenfield-Central School Board
When: 4:30 p.m. Monday, July 6
Where: 700 N. Broadway St.
The meeting is open to the public.
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