The Southwest Dubois School Corporation has released a plan for starting the second semester.
Superintendent, Tim LaGrange, notified parents about the change in an email on Friday.
Happy New Year Raider families, this is Superintendent Tim LaGrange and I want to share some information regarding the start of the second semester for Southwest Dubois County Schools.
While our goal is always to be in person, after weighing some key data points, including: 1) the current Dubois County covid numbers and our continued Red status 2) the surge we experienced with regard to positive cases and close contacts at the end of the first semester 3) the New Year’s Holiday Weekend and potential spread given what we experienced after the Thanksgiving Holiday 4) not having accurate current student data as a result of the break and 5) the effectiveness of a learning model at each age…SWDCS schools will begin school on Monday, January 4th on the following plan:
- Huntingburg Elementary and Holland Elementary will be IN PERSON starting Monday, January 4th. Those buildings will implement additional mitigating procedures, including eliminating all small group work in order to minimize close contacts in the building.
- Southridge Middle School and Southridge High School will follow the schedule below for the first two weeks of the second semester (January 4th through January 15th ):
o Monday, January 4th = Virtual…all students
o Tuesday, January 5th = Hybrid
o Wednesday, January 6th = Hybrid
o Thursday, January 7th = Hybrid
o Friday, January 8th = Hybrid
o Monday, January 11th = Virtual…all students
o Tuesday, January 12th = Hybrid
o Wednesday, January 13th = Hybrid
o Thursday, January 14th = Hybrid
o Friday, January 15th = Hybrid
o *Virtual means all students work from home and follow instructions from their buildings/teachers.
o **Hybrid means students will be split into two groups, each group alternating in-person and virtual on Tuesday through Friday. This will allow greater social distancing and reduce the number of close contacts in the school building. SMS and SHS will be communicating with each family by noon on Saturday, January 2nd with more details.
- Transportation – all buses will be running every day. Our spacing should be much improved with the limited number of students going in person on a daily basis which should help our close contact tracing.
- Food services:
o Monday, January 4th and Monday January 11th = any person 18 or younger can pick up a hot meal curbside at Huntingburg Elementary or Holland Elementary between 10:45am and noon. Additionally, a grab and go breakfast will be included with those meals.
o Tuesday, January 5th through Friday, January 8th and Tuesday, January 12th through Friday January 15th, any person 18 or younger can pick up a hot meal curbside at any of our four school buildings between 10:45am and noon. Those meals will also include grab and go breakfasts and the Friday meals will include food for the weekend as well.
- Athletics – will continue as planned with close monitoring of our teams and any changes being communicated from the building level.
Communication and status changes – parents/guardians, please call your student’s buildings over the weekend, and leave a message regarding any new cases or close contacts that have occurred over the Holiday Break that will require quarantine beyond January 4th.
