Hoffert Talks Warsaw Schools’ Plans For Graduation And Beyond
May 27, 2020 at 10:44 p.m.
Hoffert Talks Warsaw Schools’ Plans For Graduation And Beyond
By David [email protected]
WCS Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert was the guest panelist Wednesday at the COVID-19 pandemic weekly press briefing at Warsaw City Hall.
Building Prep
“As we look to the future, a couple of different things that are happening right now. Number one, we’re using this time to really prep our buildings,” he said. Staff is going through all the rooms, making sure they’re all clean, on a daily basis, even without students present. “We’re taking that time to do the extra disinfectant.”
Hoffert said they’re looking at filtration systems inside the buildings. They’re educating the public by producing videos on behalf of the school system that will be coming out.
“Just sharing the prep that we are doing behind the scenes to make sure that we are fully prepared to welcome students back into our buildings and what that looks like,” he said. “We’re working with our building principals, we’re working with our teachers association, saying, ‘What are the safety measures that we need to be able to put in place to make sure that we are going above and beyond when it comes to the cleanliness and when it comes to the conditions?’”
Graduation
One of the biggest questions students and parents often want to know about is what is Warsaw Community High School doing for graduation.
“We realize that our seniors, the class of 2020, we want to make sure that they are not forgotten inside all of this,” Hoffert said. “This is hard, this is difficult for them.”
He said as WCS has gone around and checked in on the seniors, “This looks different for them. This looks very different for them. They missed out on prom, they missed out on a lot of them. They had track seasons, baseball seasons, softball seasons, the award ceremonies that they traditionally have. The rites of passage that we’re used to.”
This is the 175th year of public education inside the Warsaw community, Hoffert said, and he doesn’t doubt that anyone will forget the 175th year.
“So what we’ve tried to do is we’re trying to make it very special for them,” he said. “While some of those activities have gone to virtual, we’ve made sure we didn’t drop some of those activities. We also realized that graduation is probably that biggest one.”
After polling students, he said they want a way to “safely, physically come back together and close their time with WCS.” Hoffert said that’s WCS’s goal. While graduation couldn’t be held June 5 because of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive orders, WCS is planning to have graduation July 17 at the football field. Rain dates are July 18, then July 19 if that doesn’t work out and then the following weekend.
Summer School
WCS has one of the largest summer school programs in Indiana, Hoffert indicated. After realizing that June wasn’t an option for in-person summer school, because Holcomb ordered schools closed until at least July 1, Hoffert said WCS will have a “secondary summer school option.” That will be on an online format in June.
“And then as we get to July, we’ve pushed our summer school back to the end of July. Right now, we are planning to be able to do that in-person,” Hoffert said, noting that they don’t know what all the circumstances will be at that point or what social distancing will look like by the end of July. “But we hope to be able to bring students back together, especially at the elementary level, for the end of July, beginning of August summer school and really use that as a jumpstart.”
Hoffert said WCS has been working with United Way of Kosciusko County because “this will have to be a bigger summer school than we’ve ever had before. We have a lot of students that we are going to be playing catch-up on, and we just want to be able to assess where they are at academically as we enter in a new school year so we can hit the ground running.”
While the summer school program will have to expand, Hoffert said the budget from the state probably won’t be expanding and likely will be contracting because more schools likely will be looking at summer school options. The state has a pot of money for summer school programs that it divides among schools offering summer programs. “We really don’t even know what that reimbursement rate is until later on,” Hoffert said.
United Way is looking at some ways to help WCS with funding.
During the question-and-answer session of Wednesday’s press briefing, Hoffert was asked how the school system will deal with students who did not retain information from remote learning during the last couple of months of the 2019-20 school year.
“You are hitting on some of the big hurdles that we have because from the moment that school shut down ... we realized that there will be learning gaps. We realized that students are going to come back in a wide array of the spectrum of where they were at. Sometimes it is that students learn better in a physical setting. That might be the ‘what is the parent help?’” Hoffert said.
He said there’s a wide array of where students will be at academically, which is why summer school will be critically important.
“If we can get that jumpstart to the school year, especially at the elementary level when it comes to that foundational literacy skills, we realize that that information is going to be so critically important to helping jumpstart our students back into the school setting and back into the school year. So we’re going to push for that as much as we possibly can, no matter what that looks like, that’s going to be critical inside of that,” Hoffert said.
He said the issue will be nationwide. Learning maps will look different than they did going into this last school year. State standards will look different. “We hope that standardized testing will look different,” he said. “So we’re going to be a lot of diagnostics as we enter this school year. We’re going to be figuring out where students are going to be at. We’re going to be looking at almost an individual learning plan for every student.”
Hoffert said everything will be impacted from ACT to SAT, nationwide. “Everyone is going to be dealing with this,” he said.
Athletics
The Indiana High School Athletic Association is working with Holcomb’s office and the Indiana Department of Education to come out with some guidance standards for all schools in the coming weeks on athletics, Hoffert said.
“On what that looks like, we realize that it is hard to socially distance on a football field. We realize that is going to be a challenge, so what does that look like inside the health standards and what will that look like? What will that look like for our crowds that want to come see Bartball take place with our football team, with Bart Curtis, and after a great season we had last year,” Hoffert said.
Students are excited to get back on the field, he said, as well as the cross country teams, academic clubs and other student groups are ready to get back. “We just want to make sure that we’re doing everything in time and we’re doing it safely,” Hoffert said.
2020-21 School Year
As for when the 2020-21 school year will start, Hoffert said WCS is planning for its school year to start where it currently is scheduled: the second full week of August.
“We are preparing that that is going to take place,” he said. The governor’s office will come out with guidance before July 1.
“It will look different. I know there’s a lot of questions out there right now. Masks? No masks? Social distance? No social distance? Those are things that we are not at the place to be able to answer yet,” Hoffert said, noting those decisions will be made at a “much higher level” than the school system.
“What we are spending our time on right now is, Warsaw Community Schools, are what are the things we can control inside of it. And what we can control is our planning, our sanitation, our preparedness, working with our teachers, working with our staff, working with our technology department. What are the things that we’ve even learned from 2-1/2 months of remote learning and how do we use what we have learned to help shape what the future will look like?” Hoffert said.
WCS’s plan is to open up its schools on time in August, to welcome students back in person, to move forward, to have a summer school session, Hoffert said, “but we realize that plans have to be flexible.”
WCS Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert was the guest panelist Wednesday at the COVID-19 pandemic weekly press briefing at Warsaw City Hall.
Building Prep
“As we look to the future, a couple of different things that are happening right now. Number one, we’re using this time to really prep our buildings,” he said. Staff is going through all the rooms, making sure they’re all clean, on a daily basis, even without students present. “We’re taking that time to do the extra disinfectant.”
Hoffert said they’re looking at filtration systems inside the buildings. They’re educating the public by producing videos on behalf of the school system that will be coming out.
“Just sharing the prep that we are doing behind the scenes to make sure that we are fully prepared to welcome students back into our buildings and what that looks like,” he said. “We’re working with our building principals, we’re working with our teachers association, saying, ‘What are the safety measures that we need to be able to put in place to make sure that we are going above and beyond when it comes to the cleanliness and when it comes to the conditions?’”
Graduation
One of the biggest questions students and parents often want to know about is what is Warsaw Community High School doing for graduation.
“We realize that our seniors, the class of 2020, we want to make sure that they are not forgotten inside all of this,” Hoffert said. “This is hard, this is difficult for them.”
He said as WCS has gone around and checked in on the seniors, “This looks different for them. This looks very different for them. They missed out on prom, they missed out on a lot of them. They had track seasons, baseball seasons, softball seasons, the award ceremonies that they traditionally have. The rites of passage that we’re used to.”
This is the 175th year of public education inside the Warsaw community, Hoffert said, and he doesn’t doubt that anyone will forget the 175th year.
“So what we’ve tried to do is we’re trying to make it very special for them,” he said. “While some of those activities have gone to virtual, we’ve made sure we didn’t drop some of those activities. We also realized that graduation is probably that biggest one.”
After polling students, he said they want a way to “safely, physically come back together and close their time with WCS.” Hoffert said that’s WCS’s goal. While graduation couldn’t be held June 5 because of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive orders, WCS is planning to have graduation July 17 at the football field. Rain dates are July 18, then July 19 if that doesn’t work out and then the following weekend.
Summer School
WCS has one of the largest summer school programs in Indiana, Hoffert indicated. After realizing that June wasn’t an option for in-person summer school, because Holcomb ordered schools closed until at least July 1, Hoffert said WCS will have a “secondary summer school option.” That will be on an online format in June.
“And then as we get to July, we’ve pushed our summer school back to the end of July. Right now, we are planning to be able to do that in-person,” Hoffert said, noting that they don’t know what all the circumstances will be at that point or what social distancing will look like by the end of July. “But we hope to be able to bring students back together, especially at the elementary level, for the end of July, beginning of August summer school and really use that as a jumpstart.”
Hoffert said WCS has been working with United Way of Kosciusko County because “this will have to be a bigger summer school than we’ve ever had before. We have a lot of students that we are going to be playing catch-up on, and we just want to be able to assess where they are at academically as we enter in a new school year so we can hit the ground running.”
While the summer school program will have to expand, Hoffert said the budget from the state probably won’t be expanding and likely will be contracting because more schools likely will be looking at summer school options. The state has a pot of money for summer school programs that it divides among schools offering summer programs. “We really don’t even know what that reimbursement rate is until later on,” Hoffert said.
United Way is looking at some ways to help WCS with funding.
During the question-and-answer session of Wednesday’s press briefing, Hoffert was asked how the school system will deal with students who did not retain information from remote learning during the last couple of months of the 2019-20 school year.
“You are hitting on some of the big hurdles that we have because from the moment that school shut down ... we realized that there will be learning gaps. We realized that students are going to come back in a wide array of the spectrum of where they were at. Sometimes it is that students learn better in a physical setting. That might be the ‘what is the parent help?’” Hoffert said.
He said there’s a wide array of where students will be at academically, which is why summer school will be critically important.
“If we can get that jumpstart to the school year, especially at the elementary level when it comes to that foundational literacy skills, we realize that that information is going to be so critically important to helping jumpstart our students back into the school setting and back into the school year. So we’re going to push for that as much as we possibly can, no matter what that looks like, that’s going to be critical inside of that,” Hoffert said.
He said the issue will be nationwide. Learning maps will look different than they did going into this last school year. State standards will look different. “We hope that standardized testing will look different,” he said. “So we’re going to be a lot of diagnostics as we enter this school year. We’re going to be figuring out where students are going to be at. We’re going to be looking at almost an individual learning plan for every student.”
Hoffert said everything will be impacted from ACT to SAT, nationwide. “Everyone is going to be dealing with this,” he said.
Athletics
The Indiana High School Athletic Association is working with Holcomb’s office and the Indiana Department of Education to come out with some guidance standards for all schools in the coming weeks on athletics, Hoffert said.
“On what that looks like, we realize that it is hard to socially distance on a football field. We realize that is going to be a challenge, so what does that look like inside the health standards and what will that look like? What will that look like for our crowds that want to come see Bartball take place with our football team, with Bart Curtis, and after a great season we had last year,” Hoffert said.
Students are excited to get back on the field, he said, as well as the cross country teams, academic clubs and other student groups are ready to get back. “We just want to make sure that we’re doing everything in time and we’re doing it safely,” Hoffert said.
2020-21 School Year
As for when the 2020-21 school year will start, Hoffert said WCS is planning for its school year to start where it currently is scheduled: the second full week of August.
“We are preparing that that is going to take place,” he said. The governor’s office will come out with guidance before July 1.
“It will look different. I know there’s a lot of questions out there right now. Masks? No masks? Social distance? No social distance? Those are things that we are not at the place to be able to answer yet,” Hoffert said, noting those decisions will be made at a “much higher level” than the school system.
“What we are spending our time on right now is, Warsaw Community Schools, are what are the things we can control inside of it. And what we can control is our planning, our sanitation, our preparedness, working with our teachers, working with our staff, working with our technology department. What are the things that we’ve even learned from 2-1/2 months of remote learning and how do we use what we have learned to help shape what the future will look like?” Hoffert said.
WCS’s plan is to open up its schools on time in August, to welcome students back in person, to move forward, to have a summer school session, Hoffert said, “but we realize that plans have to be flexible.”
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092