During a two-hour special meeting Monday, the members of the District 161 school board considered three options for how to reopen schools this fall.
Superintendent Dana Smith and a planning team presented the board with three options: 1) students return to the classroom; 2) a hybrid plan with students attending on certain days of the week; 3) remote learning.
Parents will be asked to fill out an online survey at www.sd161.org so the district can poll their options for the coming school year. Comments will be collected by Thursday and results will be analyzed and shared with board members.
More than 170 community members were on the Zoom remote meeting listening to board members discuss how best to serve students in the district that serves Flossmoor, Homewood and Chicago Heights.
“Your concerns are our concerns,” Board President Michele Hoereth said. “As an entire community we have to find a way through this and come out stronger on the other side.”
A final decision will be made during a meeting on Monday, July 13, so that parents and teachers can use the month before school starts on Aug. 13 to prepare for the coming school year.
Member Cameron Nelson said he supports a return to the classroom because Flossmoor needs to give all students, but especially those struggling, the time to interact with teachers. He is concerned the achievement gap will widen if students aren’t in school.
Member Misha Blackman agreed that student achievement is important, but raised concerns about kids being at school and bringing the virus back to their homes, especially for multi-generational families.
Community questions and comments to the board received before the Monday meeting totaled 31 pages. Smith said safety was the major concern. Other topics included instructional time, whether students will need to wear masks all day and how to put social distancing in place.
Member Christina Vliestra wonders how kids will do with masks, saying: “I have a hard time seeing my kids behind a mask all day.” She knows they find them uncomfortable and are done with them after 30 minutes.
Smith said plans to bring students back to school buildings include taking a child’s temperature before they get on a bus or walk into a building, and buses used for Parker Junior High will be sanitized before they go on grade school routes.
Each step will take time away from the school day, but these precautions are necessary to keep everyone safe.
Member Stephen Parades wanted to know if the district could fall back on Option 3-remote learning, if it finds returning to school doesn’t work. The superintendent said ideally he hopes whatever plan is selected will work for at least the first three months of school, “but if we need to change course we can do that.”
The board members all agreed that students will need to come back to their schools, if only for a short while, because teachers need to run assessments to know a student’s achievement level.
“No one addressed Option 3, remote learning. I think we might agree to face-to-face with teachers and others,” Hoereth said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been edited to clarify Ms. Blackman’s comments during the meeting.