Students in the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School District will continue virtual learning at all grade levels through January 15, 2021, following a Tuesday morning vote by the HSE School Board.  The vote was 6-1, with Amanda Shera casting the lone no vote.

There are a handful of students with special challenges spending some time in school based on their specific development plans, but most students will remain all-virtual through at least January 15, 2021.

Superintendent Allen Bourff told the board the current COVID positivity rate, based on numbers provided by the Fishers Health Department, is 16.5%.  As the pandemic started, schools were to be closed at a 5% positivity rate, later revised at 10%.  Dr. Bourff described the local health department data as “startling numbers.”

Administrators told the board that 130 teachers were absent on Tuesday, December 2nd (the day of this board meeting).  The normal teacher absentee rate is 4%-5% – 130 absent is a rate of about 10%.

There was a long board member discussion about a motion made by Janet Pritchett, seconded by Julie Chambers, to go along with the superintendent’s recommendation to have virtual classes through January 15.  The board will then reevaluate the situation at the January 13 meeting, which just happens to be the first meeting for the new board members.  There will be at least 2 new members of the board, Suzanne Thomas and Sarah Parks-Reece.  Sarah Donsbach won her Delaware Township race by 20 votes, but incumbent Amanda Shera has requested a recount.

The main reason in-person classes cannot be held, particularly at the lower grades. is the lack of substitute teachers.  Dr. Bourff told the board there are 166 people in the process of applying as subs in the HSE District.

Comments by Amanda Shera resulted in a sharp discussion among some board members at this session.  The audio link to that discussion can be accessed below.

The Fishers boys basketball team had its best offensive performance in years on Tuesday, overwhelming Muncie Central 95-52 at the Tiger Den.

The 95 points that Fishers scored is the second-highest total since the school re-opened in 2006. The only game higher was the 102 points the Tigers scored when they beat Kankakee Valley on Jan. 2, 2010.

Fishers was in control from the beginning, leading 26-6 after the first quarter and 55-24 at halftime. Sean Millsaps had 12 points in the first half, including two 3-pointers. John Entezari and Lucas Prewitt also drained two first-half triples.

The Tigers led 73-39 after three quarters, outscoring the Bearcats in all four periods. Five different Fishers players reached double figures: Charlie Smith led with 18 points, followed by Millsaps with 17, Jeffrey Simmons and Matt Brewer with 11 each and Lucas Prewitt with 10.

Millsaps and Entezari both hit one more 3-pointer in the second half, giving them three each for the game. Bryce Williams and Prewitt both threw in two 3s.

Fishers is 2-0 and goes on the road for the first time this season on Friday. The Tigers play at Noblesville in the Hoosier Crossroads Conference opener for both teams.

There were a number of emotional Twitter messages among the Indianapolis Star reporting staff today, December 1st, 2020.  The corporate ownership had offered incentives for those involved in the newspaper’s journalism (reporters, editors & a few others) to leave their employment.

When a large corporation makes such an offer, there is an obvious reason – for every employee taking the offer, that is one less layoff that is likely to come later.  Many journalists at the Star didn’t want to get the pink slip later, so opted to take the management offer and change the direction of their careers.

This brings back some bad memories for me.  I lost my job as a radio news anchor and reporter in 1982 through no fault of my own.   In fact, I could see the pain in the general manager’s eyes when he broke the news to me.  The recession had hurt ad sales and my job was being eliminated, even though he also called me an exemplary employee.

Sometimes in your working life, those are the breaks.  I picked up some part-time reporting work in Indianapolis and had some nice radio news offers from outside Indiana.  After much reflection, I decided to stay in Indy and completely change my career path at age 31.

So, I know how these IndyStar people feel.  It is hitting the Star’s remaining reporting staff the hardest.  Those journalists know there will continue to be a lot of news to cover in the state’s largest city, and the state’s largest newspaper just got even smaller.  Those staying will have a lot more work to do.

So, in the middle of a once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic, which is also causing massive economic pain, a major local news operation is cutting its reporting and editing staff once again.  So it goes with the changing economics of the news business.

Never before have we needed local news content more, but we have fewer employees in the news side of the Star than at any point in time anyone can remember.  I realize the economics of newspapers are changing, but the reduction in news staffing numbers appears to be happening at the papers owned by large corporate entities.  The days of the locally-owned daily newspaper, while still in existence in a few places (like Fort Wayne) is the exception, not the rule.  No longer is the owner of the local newspaper a member of the local community.

There is so much news to cover and fewer people to chase down all the stories.

My little volunteer blog merely makes a dent in the news content hole we see around here.  I am just one person and try to cover Fishers as best as an old, retired guy can. I make no money doing LarryInFishers.com, I am just trying to serve the community in which I have lived since 1991.

There are some locally-owned news sources around.  The Indianapolis Business Journal is locally owned and employs excellent journalists.  I have a news-gathering partnership agreement with the Hamilton County Reporter, owned by Hamilton County resident Jeff Jellison.  The Noblesville Times is owned by a chain headquartered in Indiana.

However, many of the Hamilton County newspapers do not employ that many journalists.  They all do the best they can, but the economics of the news business is what it is.

In late March, I was ready to change the direction of LarryInFishers.com.  Gathering and writing news is hard work, particularly as a volunteer.  I was planning on writing commentaries, and focusing the blog & podcasts more on local arts activities.

Then came the lockdowns with the COVID-19 pandemic.  That cancelled most of the arts activities in the area.

So, despite my announcement that I would end the news blog, I saw a responsibility to cover the pandemic news in Fishers, since other news organizations were just too busy to focus on Fishers.

Then, in late October, I contracted the novel coronavirus.  To this day, I have no idea how I caught it…I was as careful as possible, following all the guidelines, and still ended up with it.

The symptoms were not pleasant, but have no room to complain…..it appears I have made a full recovery.  But as I sat in my chair, with the virus having sucked all the energy out of my body, there was plenty of time for contemplation.

At that time, I decided that if I recover, I will go back to blogging and producing podcasts.  I continue to believe it is an important public service to the people of Fishers.

My point here is that I am an exception.  There are places like Fishers, there are entire neighborhoods in Indianapolis, that do not get the commercial news coverage they deserve.

The recent exodus of staff from the Star, among them many very experienced and talented journalists, will be a blow for all of us as news consumers.  Local news has never been more important, yet the economics of the business has created a situation where we have far fewer people covering local news.

I would hope the number of workers at the Star accepting the incentives to leave will mean there will not be another round of layoffs, but there are no guarantees.

Our local institutions and community leaders need to think about what it means to lose honest, independent news coverage.  We all need to think about solutions to the lack of local news.

In the meantime, the remaining journalists in all of its forms (print, TV & radio) will feel the need to cover more news with fewer people.  This will not be easy.

One comforting thought is this – we are fortunate to have a number of outstanding reporters still working locally.  That is all that gives me hope at this point in time