November 19, 2020

Dear Porter Township Families,

School officials were notified late yesterday and today that 7 of our students or staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.   The administration, in consultation with the Porter County Health Department, has conducted contact tracing measures.  All individuals identified as close contacts to the positive cases have been notified directly and have been advised to follow Indiana State Department of Health isolation and quarantine guidelines. If you did not receive such a notice, it is because your child was not deemed a close contact. Please understand we are limited in the amount of detail we can share under applicable privacy laws.  

Currently among our 1,509 PK-12 students (1,110 in person) and 227 staff members with the announcements today we have 16 active positive cases across all buildings resulting in 98 total individuals being quarantined due to exposure to those 16 active cases.  Please realize that these numbers are fluid as staff and students return when recovered from COVID and at the end of the quarantine/isolation period.

We have had notification of many COVID positive individuals today (and this week) impacting our high school.  We are now to the point where approximately a quarter of our high school in-person population is quarantined.  

For this reason, we are shifting Boone Grove High School to virtual for two weeks beginning Monday, November 23.  Students will return to the school building on Monday, December 7.

We have made the decision to suspend our Boys and Girls Basketball programs along with our Wrestling program.  Parents of athletes in these sports have been notified and provided information on restart dates.

Boone Grove High School Parents:  Mr. Corman and Mr. Rosinia will be communicating with you about this temporary transition to virtual.  Students will be expected to be in attendance virtually for each of their class periods and teachers will be providing instruction through Zoom and Schoology.  Watch for more information to come.    We want our buildings to be open for in-person instruction.  What you do outside of school, and while we shift to virtual at BGHS, matters.  Please do not have others over to your house or go to another person’s house. 

We want school to be able to safely reopen, and we need to slow the transmission rates in our community. None of us like this, but we need to now buckle down to protect the vulnerable in our society, protect our staff and students, and protect our health care workers.  Again, thank you for your continued support and for working to keep our school community healthy!

Sincerely,

Stacey Schmidt

Superintendent