Middle schoolers are set to return to in-person instruction under a hybrid model of in-person and remote learning beginning Nov. 2, while high schoolers could return to their schools on select Mondays beginning that same week under a revised reopening plan in Indian Prairie School District 204.
Superintendent Adrian Talley, Deputy Superintendent Doug Eccarius, and others updated the Indian Prairie school board Monday night on returning students to schools, which begins as soon as next week for a small number of elementary school classes.
“Perfection in a plan will only be achieved when we’re in phase five and return back to school as we knew it,” School Board President Michael Raczak said. “This plan is clearly not perfection, but it is a good-faith effort.”
Middle school students who select in-person instruction will come to school from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. two days a week. Two of the other days will be spent in remote learning, according to the plan.
Families will have the option to keep their students under all-remote instruction. All middle schoolers will follow their current remote instruction schedules for Mondays.
Eighth-grade students participating in hybrid learning would return beginning Nov. 2, followed by sixth-graders the week of Nov. 9, and seventh-graders the week of Nov. 16.
High school students who choose the hybrid option will attend their respective high schools one Monday per month and twice total through the end of the second quarter. Half of the juniors and seniors would attend school on Nov. 2. The other half of the juniors and seniors would attend Nov. 9. Then half of the freshmen and sophomores would attend school on the 16th and the remaining freshmen/sophomores on the 30th.
Under this plan, each high schooler who selected in-person instruction will attend their high school only twice through the end of the semester, which ends in mid-January.
Board member Mark Rising supports the district’s plan but raised concerns over the high school component, such as in-person instruction being limited to a couple of times per student. He noted other area high schools have brought in or will bring in their teens more frequently.
“I don’t see how we’re going to have a lot of parents taking advantage of their students coming in one day a month. I don’t know what that gets them,” he said.
Challenges in returning children to Indian Prairie schools include budget constraints, bus transportation, staffing, and keeping classroom sizes small. Waubonsee Valley Principal Jason Stipp said the large enrollment of the high schools makes it especially difficult to bring back students because even at reduced capacity several hundred students would be in the building.
“By preserving the integrity of the bulk schedule right now, we were able to take that Monday and look at ways to test all those practices and policies that we will be using second semester hopefully,” said Linda Rakestraw, interim assistant superintendent of high schools. “We don’t want to continue with the idea that we can never bring kids back at a full day.”
Thirty-one elementary classrooms in eight elementary schools will begin bringing back some students next week. The students will come to school two mornings a week and spend their afternoons in remote instruction. Administrators are using the limited return as a test for possible broader use throughout the district.
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Beginning Nov. 5, the return would expand to all district preK through second-grade classrooms, followed by 3rd-5th classrooms the week of Nov. 16.
Surveys sent to families regarding a return to schools showed the communitywide division, said Eccarius. Of the 11,881 surveys received, 54% of respondents said they were comfortable sending their kids back to school buildings. However, the responses varied even more when broken down by schools or grade levels.
In one example, Eccarius noted 71% of respondents at one elementary school were comfortable sending their children back while at another elementary school 36% of respondents said the same thing.