That’s just one question for which school officials have few answers as they prepare for the coming academic year.
With the reopening of the state following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, school officials are left to prepare for the 2021-22 school year without much information on what pandemic-related safety precautions will be required.
Current guidelines for schools remain the same as at the close of the 2020-21 school year, Triopia Community Unit School District 27 Superintendent Adam Dean said.
“We are in a wait-and-see approach right now,” Dean said. “Everyone is anxious to see what next year will look like, but we don’t know much at this point.”
Last school year featured a bundle of firsts, with students required to wear masks and maintain social distancing while the school buildings underwent additional cleaning and some districts used virtual or hybrid learning methods.
The Illinois State Board of Education has been meeting with districts, but it hasn’t released any definitive guidelines for next year, Dean said.
“A lot of area superintendents think next year will look a lot like it did towards the end of last year,” he said.
Many districts are seeking autonomy so their school boards can decide what safety precautions are best for their district’s specific circumstances.
While cleaning and wearing masks are not big issues, Dean is concerned about quarantine policies, which can have a big impact on individual students and their learning, he said.
“Last year, we had one student who went home four times because they were a close contact, and they never had it,” Dean said. “That’s essentially two months of learning. It wasn’t really spreading in our schools. We need to have different policies when it comes to quarantine.”
Meredosia-Chambersburg School District 11 is planning to begin the new school year as it ended the last one, Superintendent Thad Walker said.
“I personally think we’ll be wearing masks until the state says otherwise,” Walker said. “We will be back to normal as much as possible, with five days a week and full days.”
Drop-off and pick-up procedures the district implemented last year will remain in effect, even if the state removes the other guidelines, because school officials feel those procedures worked, Walker said.
“We will be doing the best we can and will follow the rules,” he said. “We just want to make sure the kids are learning and everyone is as safe as we can.”
The district will adapt as more information becomes available, Walker said.
“We have roughly six weeks left to figure things out,” Dean said. “It won’t be as bad as last summer, when we had to start from scratch.”
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Schools want to follow health rules, but say they first need to know what the rules will be - Jacksonville Journal-Courier
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