Teachers and staff within the Community School Corporation of Southern Hancock County will not be reporting to work on Nov. 19.

Instead, many of them will head to Indianapolis for the Red for Ed rally at the Indiana Statehouse, prompting district officials to close the district for the day.

In an email to families, Superintendent Dr. Lisa Lantrip said that about 70 teachers had notified administrators that they would not be at school. As a result, officials canceled school and will make the day up on Feb. 17, 2020.

“We have decided not to use an E-Learning Day for this missed day in order to preserve the integrity of what we believe E-Learning should be used for. We believe teacher involvement is critical to the success of E-Learning Days for our families. Since our teachers cannot be available on this day due to the Red for Ed rally, we have elected not to call for an E-Learning Day. I support our teachers in advocating for adequate school funding that keeps pace with annual inflation rates and responsible school reform measures,” Lantrip wrote in the email.

Wes Anderson, director of community relations and communications for the district, told Giant FM that a major focal point of the district’s E-Learning is teacher involvement.

“We talk about three main characteristics in a good E-Learning lesson. A good lesson has interactions from teacher to student, student to teacher and student to student. If you take the teacher away, you’re losing some of what makes our E-Learning what it is,” Anderson told Giant FM.