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