Creating a whole new way of operating a school and educating students in the world of COVID-19 has had hundreds of Huntley School District 158 staff members working tirelessly against the calendar as the start of a new academic year draws near.
Dan Armstrong, director of Communications and Public Engagement, knows that some people may not understand the complexity of a school district.
“This is not a flip the switch type of thing. There’s a requirement for a huge amount of arduous, difficult, almost impossible work to pull off and yet this is what’s required,” Armstrong said.
One of the best ways to adequately describe the work of Huntley Community School District 158 administrators, staff, teachers, and parents this summer is by using the word “massive” to all that’s been accomplished and all that awaits completion. District 158 is far from alone in the massive amount of work done in preparation for students’ safety and adjustments in academic education. Neighboring school districts including Algonquin Unit School District 300 are also faced with adapting into their school environment the template from the Illinois State Board of Education and Illinois Department of Public Health. Armstrong acknowledged that “no one has ever experienced anything like this before.” He described what the district has faced as “uncharted waters,” and a process of examining every aspect of the district’s operations with accommodations to be made for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parents with students in District 158 have had the summer assignment of reading the district’s Reopening Plan. The plan is the result of months of work by hundreds of staff members that participated in planning groups and thousands of families and staff members who completed surveys. On July 16, the District 158 Board posted the plan and emailed a message to all families registered for the new academic year. Parents and students were then given some time to read through pages of material and select by July 21 which of two options they preferred for their student’s instruction. Armstrong noted the relatively short deadline.
“Our schools have a massive amount of work ahead of them to do classroom, teacher, and school schedules. We have about 9,000 students and hundreds of teachers with numerous specials such as special education, and non-traditional general education offerings that add a huge amount of complexity on top of that,” Armstrong said. Students in all grade levels may opt for fully remote learning. Students in PreK-6thgrade may opt for a fully in-person learning experience. Students in 7th through 12th grades may opt for a hybrid experience that blends in-person and remote learning. The results of these choices gave principals at Huntley High School in Huntley, Marlowe Middle School in Lake-in-the-Hills, Leggee Elementary School in Huntley, Mackeben Elementary School in Algonquin, and the rest of the principals in District 158 a clear picture of how teachers will approach this most unusual school year. The decisions by the parents and students in each of these options will affect placement until the end of the first grading period and student bus service.
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) played a huge role by creating a 60 page document, a toolkit for all the school districts in the state. The toolkit offered a step by step process of detailed preparation for the upcoming school year. This is substantially different from what happened during spring break in District 158 when schools were ordered closed in Illinois by Governor JB. Pritzker. At the July 16 board meeting, District 158 Schools Superintendent Scott Rowe looked back to mid-March at the chaos that ensued as schools were ordered closed.
“This was easily the most challenging time I have experienced as an educator and professional,” Rowe said. He also noted the staff felt the same way. “When the campuses closed as spring break ended, students were having to go online with remote learning to finish the school year but it was a band aid approach,” Rowe said. The takeaway from the July 16 board meeting is that remote learning for the fall semester has evolved from the spring. “This is a significant improvement in the amount of live instruction, quality of engagement for students, we’ll control grading as we can now do it our way,” Rowe explained.
With assistance from the Council of Chief State School Officers, the ISBE not only put together a template for all aspects of safety and education under COVID-19, the State Board focused on areas of concern such as wearing masks, social distancing, and transportation. The concern for teachers was fully represented by the Huntley Education Association (HEA)in District 158. Rowe said the administration worked closely with unions to address safety concerns and worked off an HEA staff survey. Armstrong said the district will accommodate the teachers with medical concerns on a case-by-case basis. “To accommodate the fully remote learning option that all students have, we will dedicate a number of teachers to instruction in a remote format. Most of those teachers will teach from traditional classrooms outfitted with all of the educational tools and resources they need to teach effectively, as well as new technology to allow them to engage with students remotely. They just won’t have those students and will minimize or eliminate their contact with others,” Armstrong said.
The District 158 administrators recognize there is no one-size-fits-all option that would work for families in the district. Armstrong says the plan is aimed at providing choices so that families can select the option that works best for their needs. “We’ve tried to be very transparent with our families that things simply cannot and will not be the same as they were. While learning will continue, no option will be as robust as the full slate of learning experiences traditionally available to our students. But among those options, they can choose the one that works best for them,” Armstrong concluded.
