ELKHART COUNTY, Ind. – Elkhart Community Schools to join the list of closing schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This goes against earlier decisions for the schools to stay open.

Elkhart Community Schools will be closed starting March 17 through April 13.

The schools ask that if families decide to not send their children to school on March 16, to please make arrangements by March 18 to pick up the student’s learning materials, as the eLearning program will start on the 19th.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb said earlier on March 14 that he would leave school closure decisions to local leaders.

”We will need to think differently about how we live our lives. We will need to give up some of our routines so that we can navigate this,” said Goshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman.

“The health department has some testing they very strictly control. They’ve set guidelines which we are all following of who can get tested. We’re fortunate that some of our system has some other testing done, but that would be done through the phone call to see if someone would meet that level of concern. Then that can be sent off. That takes about 3 to 5 days to get results back,” said Dr. Donald Jansen, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Elkhart General Hospital.