PENDLETON — For the first time in the 2020-21 school year, South Madison Community School Corp. has gone to Level 4 in its COVID-19 operation plan.

Level 4 status puts both Pendleton Heights High School and Pendleton Heights Middle School in an e-learning educational format. East Elementary, Maple Ridge Elementary and Pendleton Elementary are using a hybrid schedule with enhanced safety and social distancing protocols.

Levels are based on scores provided by Indiana State Department of Health’s system that grades the spread of the coronavirus from Sunday-to-Sunday each week for each county.

South Madison schools’ first day at Level 4 was Wednesday, Jan. 6.

Level 4 in the district plan is for “Substantial Spread” of the coronavirus in Madison County (Red, 3.0) with school being closed and utilizing e-learning.

“It’s considerably different than the e-learning we did in the spring,” Superintendent Mark Hall said. “We worked really hard to try to improve our e-learning.

“It’s a lot more structured and organized and standardized. We knew at some point we’d probably have to go to this. We spent the first semester on professional development and those type of things with our teachers in the event we had to go to this that they would be better prepared.”

The school system had been in Level 3 — “Minimal/Moderate Spread” — as described by the plan, with a hybrid operation utilizing a combination of in-person and e-learning. This was when the county was at the Orange stage, which is a score of 2.0 to 2.5.

The South Madison plan lists Level 1 as “Low/No Spread” with operating in the traditional format with safety protocols (Blue 0 and .5).
Level 2 is “Minimal/Moderate Spread,” which is also traditional operation with enhanced safety and social distancing protocols (Yellow 1 and 1.5).
In the state’s most recent report, released Sunday, all but five counties are scored either 2.5 (orange) or 3.0 (red). The five scored lower were at 2.0.
Most counties bordering Madison are also in red, including Hancock, Henry, Hamilton and Grant counties. Delaware County is at 2.5.
“We’ve received positive feedback. It’s never going to be as good as full, in-person (school),” Hall said Monday, four days into Level 4. “It’s pretty good. The kids are making contact with their teachers every day.
“There’s a lot more structure this time than what we saw in the spring.”
Hall said they are waiting for the positivity level to go down to switch back to Level 3.
“In the meantime, we still think we’re providing a pretty good education, though it’s not the same as in-person education every day,” Hall added.
The state’s scores are based weekly on cases per 100,000 residents and a seven-day positivity rate. The health department updated its way of calculating scores on Dec. 30, which pushed Madison County into the red level.
For Blue, counties have less than 10 new cases and less than 5% positivity. The yellow range is for 10 to 99 new cases and a 5% to 9.9% rate. The orange level is 100 to 199 new cases with a positivity rate of 10% to 14.9%. The Red level is for 200 or more new cases and a 15% or greater positivity rate.
With scoring systems and rate of the virus spread continuing to change, Hall has updated the school’s plan throughout the year, coinciding with modifications made by the state health department’s recommendations.
“We haven’t changed a lot, but when they change their recommendations, we try to match what they are doing,” Hall said.
Frankton-Lapel Schools superintendent Bobby Fields said they have also made some adjustments to their way of educating students.
Beginning with Madison County’s switch to red, junior high and high schools have gone to a hybrid schedule where students come every other day and do e-learning on days they are not doing in-person schooling.
He said elementary levels are remaining in-person.
“We talked about (exclusive e-learning) and it was in our plans early on,” Fields said. “Things have changed so much since the start of COVID and when our plan was first adopted last June.
“We’ve made adjustments to it. There is nothing right now that triggers that says we have to go 100% e-learning.”
Fields said the hybrid/rotating plan has helped keep kids a safer distance apart and have better social distancing at school.
Before Christmas, he said, when kids contracted the virus it also put a lot of other kids out due to contact tracing. Since returning after the break, with the hybrid format, there have been fewer kids miss class due to contact tracing.
“We’ve had a few cases, so far, since we’ve been back (from Christmas break); we haven’t hardly had to put anybody out due to contact tracing. So, this seems to really work,” Fields said.
“What we’ve noticed and what all the other county schools have reported, we’re not seeing big outbreaks within the schools. When one of our students gets COVID it can almost always be traced back somewhere other than school. We really feel like kids are pretty safe at school and they’re not getting it at school.
“The recommendation from all the experts, the CDC and Indiana State Department of Health (is) kids need to be in school if at all possible.”