HARDIN COUNTY, Ky. — Hardin County Schools, one of the few districts in Kentuckiana starting the year with an in-person option, started its school year Monday morning.
Getting kids back to school in person amidst the pandemic and officials said getting them there safely is not an easy task.
“When you have 200 buses and travel 16,000 miles a day like we do, obviously that takes a lot of planning,” Hardin County Community Relations Specialist John Wright said.
Hardin County is following the Healthy at School guidelines, and the transportation department implemented procedures for the students taking buses.
Neal Cardin, who is entering his second year as a bus driver for the district, said he was looking forward to getting back to work.
“I missed them when we stopped school in March,” Cardin said. “It’s great to see the kids.”
Students who are riding a bus to school need a mask. If they do not have a mask, some will be available on the bus. Buses will also be loaded from back to front and unloaded from front to back. Students are assigned seats on the bus.
Since the district is operating on a hybrid schedule where students alternate school days, there are fewer kids on the bus each day. When students get to school, their temperatures will be taken inside.
Hardin County is one of the only districts that has decided to stick with its original plan of having both online and in-person options after Gov. Andy Beshear recommended schools stay virtual until the end of September.
The Hardin County School Board said giving students and families options was what worked best for their district.
“When faced with the opportunity to make a decision, they chose the plans that we still had in place for both the Online Academy and in-person,” Wright said. “Just because they had heard from so many of their constituents to say, hey we want our students to be back in school.”
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