Almost Business as Usual
~story and photos by Bob Gustin
O
n a brisk October morning, 43 degrees and sunny, Brown County High School’s principal and assistant principal stand outside the main entrance at 8 a.m. With a friendly formality and clipboards in hand, they greet arriving students, sometimes exchanging small talk. Of course, one boy is in trouble, caught yesterday on a skateboard after he had been warned. He’s told to go wait in the principal’s office. But since this is 2020, things are a little different. Principal Matthew Stark and Assistant Principal Charles Hutchins also have no-touch scanners, and take the temperatures of students who have been sick. Everyone, students and administrators alike, are wearing face masks—except one teen, who has forgotten his. No problem. Stark pulls one out of his back pocket and the boy is on his way. It’s the coronavirus pandemic world, and the high school has adapted to the circumstances. Mostly, it’s business as usual at the high school, or almost as usual. There are no choir or band concerts, no field trips. There will be a homecoming king and queen,
20 Our Brown County • Nov./Dec. 2020
but no dance. Reduced crowds at football games means they are all sold out. The soccer team was under a two-week quarantine. Clubs are still active, but students have assigned seating at meetings. Assigned seats are also the rule in the lunchroom, for the first time. Disinfecting has been added to the janitorial staff’s responsibilities, contact tracing to the nursing staff, and remote learning to the teachers. Attendance is tracked, as are illnesses. If symptomatic, students are quarantined and their contacts are traced. As of early October, one student had tested positive for the coronavirus, but the student was kept home by parents. All that means more paperwork, but “it’s the reality,” Stark said. But the essential part of life in school— learning—goes on. Stark says about 20 percent of the students are doing some sort of remote learning. Some of those do a program through Indiana Online, a statesponsored program, some through Zoom with
