January 21, 2022
Dear Families,
The District was notified of seventy-nine (79) positive cases of COVID-19 this past week including last weekend (January 14,15, &16): twenty-seven (27) at the Indiana Area Junior High School, thirty-one (31) at the Indiana area High School, five (5) at Eisenhower Elementary, six (6) at Horace Mann Elementary, and ten (10) at Ben Franklin Elementary. 75 out of the 79 cases will be attributed to the District’s 14-day rolling average. The Department of Health (DOH) worked with the school nurses and administration and concluded that twenty-one (21) additional students/staff members are required to be quarantined. Any questions regarding quarantines should be directed to the Department of Health at 1-877-PA-HEALTH (1-877-724-3258). Effective immediately, I will communicate with our families at the end of every week regarding the number of cases in the District.
We realize that there is some confusion surrounding the column we recently added to the COVID Dashboard tracking the percentages of positive individuals in each school. These data were added to provide transparency in information as to when our numbers of positive cases reach a point where a school closure may be necessary. Last week we reached the point where many of our schools reached or were very close to reaching this point. In response, we held a remote learning day for Horace Mann, canceled all in-house activities over the weekend at our schools, and closed our buildings Monday and Tuesday. By doing this we were able to take advantage of the holiday weekend and the winter storm to create, in effect, a five-day closure at HM and a four-day closure at all other buildings. The hope is that this closure will mitigate the spread in schools, but we want to keep the actual numbers of active cases in our schools to inform the decision as to whether or not an additional closure is warranted and our universal masking numbers as per our health and safety plan. At the current time, masking is still required in our schools.
I want to personally thank you all again for your patience, understanding, and cooperation as we work through this pandemic. As I mentioned before, it is times like this when community matters most, and I am proud to serve this community. As always, I invite you to please visit our COVID dashboard at www.iasd.cc for up-to-date information relating to the number of positive cases and quarantines in the District. Additionally, you will find a copy of all the letters we have sent throughout the year on this page, the number of days of school closures in the District, as well as some additional resources and information from the Department of Health and/or Department of Education.
Respectfully,
Mr. Michael J. Vuckovich
IASD Superintendent