Assistant Superintendent of PCSC encourages questions in a spirit of mutual respect

PLYMOUTH — When addressing the questions that individuals and families have facing the pandemic and how it impacts their child’s experience at school Jill Vandriessche, assistant Superintendent of Plymouth Community School Corporation encourages the public to continue to ask questions, but to do so respectfully. adult behavior is providing an example, good or bad, for children.

Having worked in education for decades, she does want for people to ask questions and be informed. “Questions are the vitality of the world. It makes us smarter. Questions are amazing. That’s what we want people to do. To ask questions and allow people to gain understanding. To learn and grow!”

While some parents and members of the public were recently upset by the school board’s decision to re-implement the

mask requirement for students, she emphasized the importance of safe in-person education. “You walk in to a classroom and it’s this environment that’s just a beautiful representation of the community as a whole that’s in one space at a given time for a large amount of time. It’s that learning and growing from each other and understanding and recognizing who we each are as individuals as we learn and grow. That’s why education is beautiful. We don’t want that to be disrupted.”

Educators and administrators are no strangers to facing infection control. Vandriessche said that the school would prefer to wear masks and implement distancing before closing the school. “When you go in to education you want the children in front of you. You want to be the facilitator of their learning opportunity. At the end of the day, Marshall County Health Department or any health department in any community is monitoring the infection rate for a multitude of things. This is the one that is spreading now currently so that’s our focus. We’ve had to do that in years past with a variety of other viruses as well.”

Vandriessche was sympathetic to the various levels of impact felt by each individual during the pandemic. “People’s experiences through this whole process have been unique. Everyone has experienced this differently. Everybody has a tied emotion to it that’s different. That’s true reality.”

From connectivity issues for technology at home, to people losing their jobs or being laid off and without health insurance, to the uncertainty of not knowing when the restrictions would end; people were impacted in a variety of ways to include the illness itself or loss of loved ones.

People were working from home and students were being taught in a virtual environment for weeks and months at a time. Not all children had or have the same support or resources at home as others.

“Any virtual opportunity is a minimum of six hours of screen time.” Pediatricians and Primary Care Physicians recommend limiting screen time to two hours or less. The challenges were endless for educators. “It’s so interesting looking at all those pieces.”

She said that those skills learned in the academic environment is what gives people the opportunity to embrace their world with an open mind which includes to ask questions. “To be able to explore and solve problems.” She added, “To be able to do that we need them in school.”

Vandriessche said she focuses on solutions, as do most educators, and she is confident that this generation of students will be advocates for their communities and look for solutions to the problems they faced during the pandemic. “Someone in the classroom doesn’t want to see this happen to a community. They don’t want to see it happen to their loved ones. Whatever it may be — these kids are going to be the game changers for the next generation and that’s amazing!”