INDIANAPOLIS — More than one million Indiana children are heading back to schools spread across nearly 300 school districts.
Are they safe?
"Some schools aren't," said Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Jennifer McCormick. "Some districts have said they are pumping the brakes."
Some are delaying opening or quickly eliminating "in-person learning" and implementing e-learning, depending on how the pandemic is affecting their local communities and the recommendations of health officials.
"Who should be open, when they should be closed. Based on what I am told from our medical experts, we are good to go," McCormick said.
McCormick said high school sports, where face masks and social distancing is impossible, will continue based on the advice of the governor and medical experts.
"If they tell us to shut it down, we will shut it down," she explained. "We are getting ready here shortly to have large crowds of spectators and if we are still given the green light, I am sure schools will go with that green light, unless they hear differently."
Some school districts have already identified students and employees infected with the coronavirus. Positivity rates are increasing in many communities. Educators and parents have asked the Department of Education to set a threshold - a hard number of cases or testing results that dictate when schools should close.
According to McCormick, a threshold would be helpful, but establishing one is not the responsibility of the Department of Education.
"We don't set that. You don't want me to set that," she said. "That comes from medical experts."
McCormick said students are doing an amazing job of wearing face masks and practicing social distancing.
But the job of contact tracing, finding and notifying parents of students who may have been exposed to the virus, school administrators tell the DOE, is more difficult than expected.
The department has also heard from teachers who claim the interests of students and parents are being put ahead of the safety of teachers. Some are retiring or quitting.
"Teachers who said, 'You know what? I could go a little bit longer, but it's just not worth it,'" McCormick explained. "We've had people leave the profession...ask for medical leave because maybe their own family, they don't want to put at risk."
McCormick doesn't want to put students or employees at risk by using hundreds of schools for polling places in the November elections. She is advocating absentee balloting.
Indiana's response to the COVID-19 pandemic is constantly changing. Keeping up, McCormick said, has been difficult.
"Schools are doing the best they can," she explained. "But when you get a thousand kids coming through your door, they change."