The organizer of a peaceful protest Tuesday evening outside the administration offices of Elmhurst Unit District 205 hopes the message from the approximately 150 people in attendance is heard by school administrators and board members.
The gathering was in response to a decision announced Oct. 16 by District 205 officials that all students would return to remote learning Oct. 21-Nov. 4 because of a rise in weekly coronavirus case counts in DuPage County. The district had been following a hybrid model since Oct. 5, which brought students whose parents/guardians chose to go back to school buildings part of the time, in conjunction with online learning at other times.
“I think we made our plea to the decision makers in our district,” organizer Leslie Stettin said after the hour-long protest. “We want them to open up school based on the science. The metrics the district is using to shut us down aren’t what we believe they should be using. There has been very minimal transmission of the virus at schools, and we want them to use different guidelines.”
There were a few speaker at the protest, including Dr. Mia Taormina, an Elmhurst resident with a young daughter, who is an infectious disease specialist and spoke in favor of kids being back in school.
“They want to be in school, they can be in school,” she said. “Schools are not super-spreader events. There is no way I would put my daughter in harm’s way. She’s not going to school if it’s not safe. It is safe.”
Taormina said there have been 17 total coronavirus cases in DuPage County schools since March 1 and agreed with Stettin’s suggestion that school officials look at a different metric in determining whether to have schools open.
In an Oct. 16 emailed letter to District 205 families, Superintendent David Moyer wrote that DuPage County had moved into the Substantial Community Transmission Category, as the weekly case count rose to 119 cases per 100,000 people in the county population, a 34% increase from the previous week and that cases had risen for those under the age of 20 by 46.7%.
“This means that the presence of COVID-19 is on a large scale and is widely spreading throughout our community at a rapid pace that jeopardizes the health and safety of our families,” Moyer wrote, noting that 100% remote learning had been recommended by the DuPage County Health Department at the time.
That explanation didn’t sit well with Taormina.
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“To preemptively close in response to a metric that covers tens and hundreds of thousands of people is absolutely absurd,” she said. “We were supposed to be having a conversation about moving from virtual to hybrid to full in-person, not backwards.”
Parent Scott Malaga, who has twin children attending York High School, said he attended the protest because he feels strongly that students need to be back in school.
“This is a great school district, but I have seen first-hand that remote learning does not work,” Malaga said. “Kids are not learning like they should.”
Malaga said he believes logic needs to be used by those making the decisions about whether students will be in school.
“Logic needs to be used to support our kids,” he said. “Logic has to overcome fear, fear of the pandemic. Our kids are the most penalized and the least at-risk.”
Dan DeCristofaro has three children attending District 205 schools and had an even stronger take about why he wanted to be at the protest. He said he wants to see students back in school full-time, not only part time as part of a hybrid program.
“Somebody needs to have a voice for these kids,” he said. “They need to stop infringing on their rights to an education.”
When asked for a response to the protest, District 205 issued the following statement from Moyer:
“District 205 greatly values its relationship with the school community. The first foundational belief of the Open D205 Steering Committee states that the top priority is protecting the health and safety of all students and employees. As school leaders, we are leaning in, considering and weighing the concerns expressed in various forms by all of our constituents and the medical community as we adhere to this principal while recognizing the need and desire for students to be in school. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic we have had to navigate this delicate balance. Make no mistake, the administration shares a common goal to see our students back in the classroom as soon as it is advisable and safely possible to do so.”