Officials at the Triton School Corporation continue to work with students to keep the school open, but they are prepared in case COVID-19 takes the school year on a different course.
Superintendent Jeremy Riffle said that they are watching COVID-19 trends in the county and in the area.
“Every Wednesday at noon they (State Department of Health) come out with a new color-coded map that gives us an idea of where we are at as a county,” said Riffle. We share students with Kosciusko County as well so we are continuing to have those conversations with both counties. “It’s one thing to just watch that and it’s another thing to be prepared if and when we get call to say we’re going to have an extended layoff and that type of thing. So, we’re just communicating with our community to say we continue to work hard.”
If for any reason the school needs to be closed due to a high community spread of COVID-19, teachers and students are prepared to take action.
“We’ve created what we call Tech Tuesdays. Along the way, we have technology integration specialists who have continued to meet with our teachers during those Tech Tuesdays to help them create lessons, digital lessons, how to best use Google Classroom, how to communicate through that to post lessons, how the students can complete assignments, and just continuing to get them very familiar platform. If the worst case scenario happens, we’re prepared for that.”
Riffle said the corporation has been very fortunate to see only four positive cases at the school and those who have been quarantined have not had the virus. There are rapid tests available to students in coordination with the school’s health network.
Efforts at the school to slow the spread of COVID-19 are working, according to Riffle.
“We have assigned seating in our cafeterias and in our classrooms. Obviously, we’re masking up when we’re not seated and/or social distanced. We have hand sanitizer all over the place, we have constant reminders, we’ve had meetings with the kids who seem to have difficulty keeping their mask up and doing what they’ve been told, but I’ll be honest with you, 90 percent of our kids have been amazing when it comes to following the expectations. So they’ve done a really nice job. Our staff has been amazing.”
He said everyone is working together to make sure the school is open and students can receive in-person education, and participate in sports and other extra curricular activities.
