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Desks are currently empty in English teacher Rachele Raloff’s room. Learning is virtual under the red status, leaving teachers alone with empty classrooms during the school day. PHOTO BY ROSALIE DEGENHART
Planned shift to yellow status on Jan. 7; no change in safety protocols BY ROSALIE DEGENHART EMILY BRISENO assistant editor reporter The Crown Point Community School Corporation has undergone three types of schedules in just one semester: yellow, then green, and now red. On Nov. 12, the high school began its first day with all students at home under the red schedule and will be in the red schedule until Jan. 6. On Jan. 7, CPHS is planning on switching to a yellow schedule, where students attend on alternating days with only half in the building at a time. Principal Russ Marcinek said that the yellow schedule will be the same as it
was at the beginning of the year. “We are going to keep all of the same protocols that we had starting in August. Nothing is going to be changed as far as what our expectations will be for students,” Marcinek said. “(Students) will still be required to wear masks. We’re going to be practicing social distancing whenever possible, and we are going to rely on the same sanitizing processes that we used starting in August.” Recent statistics have shown that schools are the “safest place” for students to be, concerning COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield. Redfield
believes that students are not contracting COVID-19 at school, but rather, and more likely, in their household and community. Therefore, Redfield states that schools are not the problem when it comes to spreading COVID-19. While this news is known to Marcinek, precautions and sanitation protocols will still be the same as they were at the beginning of the semester in yellow. “Our feeling is that we want to make sure that we’re protecting the safety and security of our students and their families first and foremost,” Marcinek said. “Our goal is to stay in school. We want kids to be here, in person, and we feel like that’s the best way to proceed until cases around the
