Holcomb will also suspend all state testing for the school year

Updated March 19 at 3:52

At a press conference on Thursday, March 19, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb announced that all Indiana schools will be closed until May 1, 2020. Holcomb also announced that state testing, including ISTEP10 and ILEARN will be cancelled.  These changes come as a result of the spread of COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus.

The governor also noted the possibility of not being ready to return by May 1, and said, “If, and I stress if, by some miracle, we get students back this year, we’ll use that time in class for instruction. So I’m cancelling Indiana’s student assessments for this school year.” 

After Holcomb, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick expanded on some of his proposals. 

“School closure to May 1… this is the first step,” McCormick said, “There may be a need to come back and revisit that.” McCormick also noted that it is just state testing being cancelled and not other non-mandated testing.

 McCormick said, “Our goal is to graduate (high school) seniors.” However, she noted that decisions for certain ceremonies will be made on a local level. 

On March 19, Greater Clark County Schools announced their plans for the time off. Weeks will alternate between eLearning weeks and Closed Days. On the weeks that students are off, they may continue to work on submitting assignments from the eLearning week before, but no new work will be assigned.

According to the Indiana Department of Health, there are currently 56 reported cases of the coronavirus in Indiana as of March 19, 2020. 

Story by Greta Reel and Max Fisher

On March 13, 2020 Greater Clark County Schools, lead by Superintendent Mark Laughner, announced GCCS’s plan in response to the global pandemic, COVID-19 (Coronavirus). 

The plan states Greater Clark County schools will have:

• e-learning until Spring Break (March 16 – 20)
• regularly scheduled Spring Break (March 23 – 27)
• no school (March 30 – April 3)

GCCS will also not have to make up the week without school following Spring Break. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb has waived 20 days for all Indiana schools. This means the 5 days used  by GCCS the week of March 30 will be excused. 

Looking forward GCCS will make a decision for the week of April 6 – 10 by April 2. 

While the decision to close was made at the district level, Jeffersonville High School principal Pam Hall says her staff was already doing what they could to keep students safe. “Our custodial staff have been consistently using chemicals that would kill the virus,” Hall says,  “We’ve made a very calculated and very rigid routine of cleaning in between passing times…Making sure that those very common areas are being wiped down consistently.” She also noted that that the custodial staff will do a “top-to-bottom” clean of the school during the break. 

Jeffersonville High School Principal Pam Hall says the E-learning days should be like those done before at Jeff High, “It should just be very short assignments, no more than 15- 20 minutes.” Hall also noted that teachers like usual will be available to help during the course of the day. 

While district and other administrators have only made a decision for the next three weeks, many Jeff High students have expressed their concerns for future events. Whether it’s prom, graduation, or spring sports. Students are wondering what will happen following the three weeks. 

Hall says the administration hasn’t made any official plans that far forward, but she hopes to be able to deliver these experiences for her students. “I think that there are certain things that a student at any high school looks forward to,” says Hall, “We know that graduation and prom are two really big things…  and it is certainly something that we want to make sure happens for our kids. So they have that full high school experience.” Despite this, Hall says there are no concrete plans in place at the moment. For sports, Hall believes a lot of the decisions will be influenced by the IHSAA (Indiana High School Athletic Association.) But Hall, a former athlete and former coach herself, hopes for the best after the three weeks. 

When asked about the reaction to COVID-19 Hall doesn’t think the plan by GCCS is an overreaction. She says when looking at all the angles, “This makes sense.”