Northeast Jr/Sr and Intermediate schools move to virtual learning through Oct. 16

After closing all in-person schooling for Wednesday, October 7, due to Covid-19, Northeast Dubois announced they would go to virtual learning in most of the corporation’s schools until October 16.

According to Superintendent Bill Hochgesang, while it was hard to decide to close down the intermediate school because of the hardship on the parents, nearly half the staff there were being required to quarantine because of potential exposure to the novel coronavirus.

“With almost half our staff out, it is almost impossible to get enough subs and rearrange people to cover,” Hochgesang said.

He added that a large number of staff at the junior-senior high school also have to quarantine.

He also pointed out that closing the intermediate school, which covers third through sixth grades, means parents and siblings in the junior-senior high school would likely need to stay home with those younger students.

“It is just this whole ripple effect,” Hochgesang said. “We just made the decision that we wouldn’t have enough staff that could physically be present in the buildings to have in-person instruction at the intermediate and the junior-senior high.”

The corporation did juggle some staff to the elementary school to continue in-person with the pre-K through second graders. “We feel that is the most difficult age to do online learning,” he said.

While he did not report the number of positive cases and whether they were students or staff, Hochgesang stated the impact increases exponentially due to the number of students and teachers in contact with each other daily. A single student testing positive for Covid-19 could lead to dozens needing to quarantine to stop the spread.

“When you contact trace, you eliminate so many, whether it is staff or students, but in this case, it hit the staff harder than it did the students,” Hochgesang said.

The teachers who are quarantining can still conduct classes remotely with their students through the e-learning platform.

“We had a three-week run with almost no positives,” Hochgesang said adding he had hoped they were able to keep the numbers down until Fall Break.

“I am pleased we were able to go this long and it has went this well,” he said. “I am hoping that by doing this now that we can come back after Fall Break and making it to Thanksgiving or Christmas Break without having to do this again.”

Although in-person instruction is canceled, sports and ECA will continue at the junior-senior high school since the majority of those impacted are staff members.

All Northeast Dubois Schools will return to regular in-person learning on October 26 after fall break.