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player ready...Arlington Heights School District 25 continues to work toward its goal of having all students back for in-person learning in January, hiring nine contact tracers and scheduling training for after the first of the year.
But a new set of internal metrics, unveiled at the Dec. 11 school board meeting, could complicate a move that many parents have clamored for almost from the start of the school year.
If five of the six new internal metrics, proposed at the meeting, became significant concerns, students in some classrooms could return to remote learning for up to two weeks at a time, Superintendent Lori Bein said.
If the district could not move staff around to fill vacant positions five days out of two weeks or if enough substitute teachers could not be hired, some classes could be grouped together. An absence rate of more than 60 would require the district to move people around to different classrooms or fill gaps where needed. A staff absence rate of more than 115 for nine days over a two-week period could require some classrooms to return to remote learning for up to two weeks at a time, Bein said.
The choice for students and families would be either five day in person or five-day remote learning. Hybrid would no longer be an option for learning, Bein said.
Bein warned that moving staff around like this for nine days out of two weeks could mean “some students might not get services. It could provide inconsistent instruction and exhaust the staff,” she said.
School board member Anisha Patel said that the amount of shifting that could take place would affect the consistency “and quality of education that each student deserves.”
Board President Brian Cerniglia agreed.
“A Band-Aid is fine for one day…but to what end can we sustain things and how many days are we asking staff to jump out of their normal role and cover another? It’s not an education that anyone wants to provide,” he said.
Other factors that could return students to remote learning include evidence of transmission of the novel coronavirus at school. The Cook County Department of Public Health would determine the extent of an adaptive pause or a return to hybrid learning, SD25 officials said.
Students have been going physically into the classroom two days a week and doing remote learning two days a week since October, as part of the district’s hybrid learning plan. Five positive cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, linked to one classroom could cause a shift to remote learning for up to two weeks.
Unlike past meetings, there were no members of the public in attendance at the Dec. 11 meeting. The administration, however, received 57 written comments. Nearly 20 expressed disappointment in the board’s vote at the Dec. 5 special meeting to reject the administration’s proposed for an adaptive pause to hybrid learning. Students would have moved to full-time remote learning from Dec. 7 through Jan. 15 as reports of positive COVID-19 cases in the surrounding community increased.
In an audio statement played during the Dec. 11 meeting, Kelly Drevline, president of the teachers union, chastised the board for what she called gambling with the health of students, teachers and staff.
“Your actions show you do not care if students, teachers staff get sick … you don’t care who’s filling the spots. You only care that the buildings stay open no matter what the cost. … You have put us in an impossible situation…you have chosen to not err on the side of caution,” Drevline said on the recording.
School officials reported that statistics showed that from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, four staff members and nine students tested positive for COVID-19.
Deborah Kadin is a freelancer.