On Friday, March 5, Lawrence Township announced that they will be moving to an all in person model of learning after spring break. This decision was made with guidance from the Marion County Public Health Department after the Marion County positivity rate was below 5% for several weeks. 

When students return from Spring Break on April 5, they will be in-person Monday through Thursday. Fridays will remain all virtual days with time for additional help from teachers available in the afternoon. Students will still have the option to be all virtual if they are not comfortable returning to school in-person. Students had to make the decision to be virtual or in-person by March 14. Principal Brett Crousore estimates that there will be around 1700 students in-person each day given the current enrollment numbers.

“We have currently 1025 all virtual and we have 2736 total enrollment, so I would guesstimate 1650-1700 [in person students],” Crousore said.

The current safety protocols, mask wearing, cleaning procedures, and social distancing, will remain in place. Students can now be seated three feet a part in the classroom. Seating charts will be implemented for contact tracing. 

“We’ll set the classrooms up for safety protocols and make sure we’re all seated in the seating chart in case of a contact tracing issue we can take care of that,” Crousore said.

Cafeteria safety protocols will be changing to increase contact tracing. Students will now have to sign-in using a QR code to document what table they are sitting at and who they are sitting with. 

“We’ll do a sign in at each table. Students will sign in on a QR code that lets us know who was sitting at which table with their student ID and their name that they were sitting at that table at A lunch, B lunch, C lunch or D lunch. It’s just a form that they will fill out. If a student does not have the technology to do so we can help them with that,” Crousore said.

Crousore believes having students back in the building four days a week will allow for more instructional time. In addition, he believes teachers will benefit by being able to better access student understanding while they are in the classroom. 

“You lose instructional time with the Zoom and getting kids on and seeing faces and getting reactions. We’ll be able to do more formative assessment with kids because now in the moment you’ll know whether they’re understanding or not understanding,” Crousore said.

While school will not be completely back to normal, Crousore is looking forward to having more kids back in the building and having school feel a little more normal.

“I just can’t wait to have everyone back and to get back to some semblance of normal,”Crousore said.