Highland board changing to all in-person classes

RIVERSIDE - The Highland Community School District is going to return all in-person on Monday, as decided by the school board.

Going against the recommendation of the administration, the school board discussed returning kids back to the classroom full time.

The administration recommended changing the elementary school kids to all in-person and keeping the middle and high school on a hybrid model.

The hybrid model has half of the students in class, while the other half works from home on a rotating schedule.

Superintendent Ken Crawford said the hybrid model has helped the secondary school avoid outbreaks and high numbers of quarantining.

High School Principal Angela Hazelett said the secondary level has kids in a variety of different activities that play schools such as Winfield-Mt Union in Henry County, where they are seeing a spike in cases.

'We play down there we get it, they play up here, we get it,” she said.

Hazelett compared it to a bus speeding toward you.

'You can stay there and get hit by the bus, or you can move out of the way,” she said.

She said even though Highland's cases are low, the surrounding counties are having spikes. The school needs to take that into consideration, she said.

As of Monday, the Highland schools reported between one and five absences due to positive COVID-19 tests and 14 students absent due to quarantine. No staff was absent due to COVID-19.

Many school board members said they hear students and parents want school to return in-person at all times.

School board Vice President Megan Allen said there is a communication issue between the teachers and students, stating she has seen a classroom that doesn't have a Goggle Classroom set up.

Allen said she believes the teachers are doing a good job at setting the students up at the end of the day, and kids may have taken for granted how much work is done in school. She said parents and students should be emailing teachers if they do not understand something.

At the elementary level, Principal Jane O'Leary said they have more students turn in homework if they are given a hard copy.

Administration members said they feel they did not prepare kids enough to see the at home days as a work day.

'I do think people have treated it like a day off and have scrambled to get it done before they have to be in school the next day,” Hazelett said. 'We think we set them up for failure unintentionally.”

The board voted unanimously to return 100 percent in-percent starting Monday.