Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 shifted from all-remote instruction to offering students a hybrid learning model in recent weeks, but the move has drawn fewer than 1 in 4 high schoolers inside physical classrooms for in-person learning.
That is what Superintendent David Schuler reported at the Jan. 21 school board meeting. The attendance information from the superintendent came two days after the hybrid plan went into effect. It also followed previous repeated calls from a group of parents who wanted district administrators and board members to “open the schools.”
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“We have approximately 2,800 students at our six comprehensive high schools choosing in-person instruction for the third quarter,” Schuler reported to board members at the Thursday meeting.
In hybrid mode, students whose families have chosen the option are in school buildings up to five days each week. District officials have also said that families may choose to have their students remain in all-remote learning mode.
According to school district information Pioneer Press received prior to the meeting through a Freedom of Information Act request, SD214 reported a total enrollment of 11,838 students as of Jan. 8. The district serves students from Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Des Plaines, Elk Grove Village, Mount Prospect, Prospect Heights, Rolling Meadows and Wheeling.
The district, according to the FOIA data, indicated that families of 2,191 students had chosen in-person or hybrid instruction. Those numbers – also represented in the 2,800 Schuler reported at the meeting – indicate that fewer than 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 students in the district opt for a learning mode that includes physically attending class at any one of the SD214 schools, which include Hersey High School in Arlington Heights and Buffalo Grove High School.
Four people spoke during the public comment part of the school board meeting, with two criticizing administrators for sending only a single email to parents to notify them of the hybrid option. They said that many parents missed the deadline to choose that.
“The return to school process – you gave families a week,” said Elizabeth Bauer, a parent and school board candidate in the April election. “You sent an email out once. Only at Prospect High School did the principal send out a reminder, and you could tell there was a major, major difference. Prospect kids responded far more than anybody else.”
Schuler told Pioneer Press in an email that: “We notified all parents of our third-quarter plans in December by way of our regular email updates to parents and guardians and offered a survey through our student information system about in-person learning for the third quarter.”
In a separate email to Pioneer Press, district spokesman David Beery provided information on the number of students attending classes in person.
“Prospect and John Hersey high schools are at or near capacity, which remains limited due to social distance requirements. Our other schools are not at capacity,” Beery wrote. “We have continued to inform families that if they would like their child to attend in-person instruction at the schools where we still have capacity … reach out to their associate principal for operations.
Beery explained that the number of students who opted for hybrid instruction “was generally lower than we originally expected throughout the first semester, before public health metrics compelled us to begin on November 30 the adaptive pause that ended on January 18.”
In a phone interview with Pioneer Press after the Jan. 21 school board meeting, board President Dan Petro said there has been what he called “a handful of the same parents” who have complained and called on district officials to open schools completely and bring all students back.
He said those parents are looking for the district “to make everything normal, which we obviously can’t do.”
“The fact that 80% of parents don’t think they want their kids back in school (in person) tells you the majority of the community is concerned about COVID-19, as the school board is,” said Petro.
He said district leaders are trying to comply with state law and with local public health department rules to make school district buildings safe for students and staff.
Petro said he is hopeful that the increased availability of the novel coronavirus vaccine for staff and high-risk individuals in the community will allow the district to move toward bringing all students back in person.
“My anticipation is that in the fourth quarter [of the academic year] in March we’ll be pretty much open,” Petro said.
Graydon Megan is a freelancer.