Both the Indian Prairie School District and Naperville School District 203 will continue to have the vast majority of its students learn remotely through at least the end of next week as a resurgence in COVID-19 cases continues locally, district officials said Monday.
Both districts updated their respective school boards Monday evening with their plans to welcome back students under a hybrid of remote and in-person instruction.
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Most District 203 students will continue remote learning for at least the next two weeks; the pause on the hybrid plans is through Nov. 16. Some students in specialized programs and others identified as needing some intervention continue to attend their schools to an extent, officials said.
District 203 Superintendent Dan Bridges said early childhood students in full-day preschool will begin returning to their schools on an alternating-day basis beginning Thursday.
“While this is not the accelerated stage 2 we were hoping to begin on Oct. 20, we have successfully engaged more students in in-person learning over the last two weeks, and we’re hopeful that we will continue to build on that success,” he said.
Indian Prairie officials, meanwhile, unveiled a revised high school schedule Monday. The updated schedule has high schoolers in school for two days a week from 7:25 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. The schedule adds about an hour Tuesday through Friday afternoons for academic support time.
Mondays would be all-virtual days for all high schoolers and would not follow the block scheduling set for the rest of the week.
An earlier plan had high schoolers attending one Monday of in-person instruction about once every other month.
A group of high school principals, students, parents, and staff participated in reviewing alternate high school schedules. Neuqua Valley High School Principal Lance Fuhrer said this schedule is “sustainable, stable, consistent.”
“Now we’re going to 10 hours (of in-person instruction) a week. So that’s a huge increase, which is great,” said Indian Prairie board member Natasha Grover.
Indian Prairie officials said an ideal date to switch to the new schedule is Nov. 30, following the Thanksgiving weekend. According to the district’s update Monday, Indian Prairie schools will return to hybrid learning and expand the hybrid plan when DuPage County health officials designate the county’s community transmission as moderate or minimal for two consecutive weeks.
Weekly COVID-19 case counts, cases among the youth population, and positivity rates are all up in DuPage, Indian Prairie Deputy Superintendent Doug Eccarius told the school board.
Christine Igoe, District 203’s assistant superintendent for student services, said while the number of COVID-19 cases continue to be low in the district, the case count is trending up. District COVID-19 dashboard data reported 20 new positive cases among students and staff over the last week, up from 15 the previous week.
The number of District 203 students quarantining at home due to potential exposure increased from 119 the week of Oct. 19 to 158 last week, the district’s dashboard data showed.
The DuPage County Health Department has labeled the risk of transmission locally as substantial, with a 14-day case positivity rate of just over 8% in the zip codes representing the district boundaries.
Parents at the District 203 meeting urged the district to reopen schools. Lisa Grimes said her children have grown apathetic to learning remotely after they experienced a “meltdown” weeks earlier.
“I believe it was buildup from weeks and weeks of anxiety and frustration and like a volcano it blew,” she said. “The internal pressure produced tears and pleas for help – ‘I can’t do this,’ ‘I hate school,’ ‘I don’t understand,’ and of course, ‘I can’t connect to the internet.'”
“Children need to be educated in person and in their classrooms,” added John Mullarkey; he told the superintendent to “step up or step aside, please” if district officials did not reopen their schools.
Mullarkey noted countries like Ireland and Germany have imposed lockdowns on certain businesses and outings but schools have largely stayed open.