COVID in the Schools

By Deedra Lewis

Senior, English Major, IUPUI

Masks are the new way students show their personal style at Lafayette Central Catholic Junior/Senior High. Amid the plaid and crests, students do everything (besides eat lunch) with their masks on. It is one of the many changes the school had to make before reopening in August after being fully remote since the third week of March, 2020.

Since their student body is smaller than most public schools, with only about 500 kids enrolled this year, Central Catholic has been able to stay open with adjustments since August. These adjustments include spacing out desks in the classroom to accommodate social distancing guidelines and moving those that don’t fit in the classroom to an overflow room. With some families choosing to still be online, this left about three or four students per class, or about 20 students per class period, in the overflow room.

In August I was contacted by my alma mater to become their overflow room supervisor. After graduating from there in 2017, I hadn’t thought about high school at all. Being that all of my classes had shifted to an online format at IUPUI, and I had moved back in with my parents, I decided I could use the extra cash. My job was to supervise the kids who were randomly selected to not be in the classroom because of the social distancing rules. These students, from 7th to 12th grade, would video chat into their classes just down the hall instead of being in the classroom with their peers.

With a substitute teacher shortage looming, my job quickly became the catch all at the school. I helped out with sanitization after lunch, supervised kids whose teachers were in quarantine, and even was a substitute for three classes at a time. Through this experience, I found a love for teaching and this particular school.

Around me, I could see how this was taking a toll on the full-time teachers. Not only did they have to teach during a global pandemic, they also had to adapt their classes for online learners and keep track of their progress.

“It is definitely a struggle to keep everything together,” Caitie Beardmore, theology teacher and campus minister, explained.

“I try to keep the online kids involved. Whether it is making sure to ask them questions or have them stay after to see if they had any problems. It’s important for me to make them feel like they are right here with us,” she said.

“Our administration has been great about keeping us in the loop about what is going on. Our case numbers are there (on the LCSS website) for everyone to see, and we are immediately contacted if one of our students tests positive. We were even given paid time off to get the vaccine.”

As far as academic progress goes, of course there have been cases of students that have taken advantage of the flexibility that the teachers are expected to have. But, for the most part the kids have been excited to get back to school at any capacity, and have been diligent about following the rules to keep them in person.

My sister, Claire Lewis, a 7th grader at Central Catholic, says “I was ready to come back and see my friends. I’m also glad I got to play sports this year.”

After contracting COVID-19 and testing positive, Claire’s parents called the school to report her case for contact tracing. Melissa Roberston, interim principal at Central Catholic, then explained to them the rules of her quarantine period, which included isolating in her own room. Her quarantine lasted 10 school days from when she tested positive, and she explained to me what it was like.

“I logged on every day at 8 to my Google meet. My teachers would have me set up on an iPad in the classroom, and would try to make sure I could hear them. Sometimes I couldn’t see the board or hear videos they were playing, but they would send me them later. At lunch, my mom would make me some mac and cheese, and I couldn’t even taste it, and she would set it outside my door. I would wait for her to go downstairs and then grab it and eat it in my room. I logged back on to my Google meet and went through my afternoon classes. I couldn’t go to practice so I tried to keep up with conditioning as much as I could in my room.”

After her quarantine was over, Claire couldn’t wait to get back to school, something she never thought she would say. “It definitely made me appreciate it more and I would never want to be alone for that long again,” she said.

Recently, students in grades 7-11 were required to take an NWEA test, a district mandated test, that measures their progress in their academic standards for their respective grades. While many have been worried about students falling behind in terms of their education, Central Catholic’s A Grade from the Indiana Department of Education is a good indication that they are on the right track. These letter grades are a combination of performance on standardized tests, like the ISTEP, NWEA, and SAT/ACT, and student growth in those categories.

Central Catholic supplies Macbooks and chargers for every student that is included with tuition, and supplies mobile hotspots and wifi routers for any kids that need that resource at home. As of April 10 fewer than 1% of Central Catholic students were fully remote.

Childhood hunger has also been another concern for many people as schools shifted online in March 2020. While Central Catholic is a private school and usually students must pay for their lunches unless they have a free or reduced lunch exception, they received a USDA waiver which allowed them to offer lunch and breakfast for free for this school year. While students were online during the spring semester, volunteers at many Indiana schools helped deliver and hand out lunch kits for students including milk, fruit, and an entree for each school day.

While this is only my experience at one school during this pandemic, it has been shown to be somewhat typical, especially for schools in Indiana. While some schools went online for a short period of time after a spike in cases in November, more than 90% of schools have offered some sort of in person option since August. Along with that, all schools have given the option for students to be online if they felt more comfortable with that. All Indiana schools are set to be fully in person by the 2021-2022 school year.

With vaccination numbers increasing, and those over 16 being able to receive the vaccine, it seems that we might be getting back to “normal” soon. Being able to experience working at a school during a pandemic has taught me to roll with the punches, how important it is to have a helpful administration, and most of all that students and teachers are incredibly resilient and have been able to learn even in this difficult environment.