Hybrid Learning To Launch Later This Month In District 113

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Students at Deerfield and Highland Park high schools are scheduled to begin returning to classrooms later this month after the Township High School District 113 board voted to begin offering a hybrid of in-person and remote instruction for the first time since the emergence of the coronavirus nearly a year ago.

The board voted 6-1 to set a date of Feb. 23 for the launch of a simultaneous hybrid learning option in the district. About 60 percent of Deerfield High School families and 40 percent of families at Highland Park High School have indicated they plan to opt for the on-campus option, which will allow students to return to campus four half- days a week.

The vote came a week after board members asked administrators for the earliest possible date when hybrid learning can begin. Since the start of the 2020-21 school year, the district has been operating in a model administrators call "remote-plus-services" that allows students on campus for some extracurricular and additional learning opportunities.

Superintendent Bruce Law said the 23rd was the earliest date the district would be able to begin a hybrid program. At a special board meeting last week, he told board members that starting the week of Feb. 9 would be "disastrous," and the need to prepare for a new schedule meant the week of Feb. 16 was "not going to work for a lot of reasons" as a start date.

"We have teachers that have medical situations that require accommodations, of course we're going to respect those and honor those and grant those requests for accommodations. But we have teachers who also have other needs that will interfere with our ability to run school," Law said.

"We want to have our teachers teaching, whether they are teaching remotely because we have an accommodation that we're honoring, or they're in person — because I know that's where teachers want to be," said the superintendent, who has argued that remote instruction is academically superior to hybrid learning.

District officials had previously announced plans to adhere to recommendations from the Lake County Health Department indicating that average COVID-19 rates above 14 new daily cases per 100,000 residents are considered highest risk. That rate stood at 17.8 per 100,000 in district ZIP codes and at 23 for the county as a whole on Jan. 28, the most recent date where data is available from the health department.

Law said administrators have always looked at the infection rate and other metrics, among other factors, but they have not been used as a hard threshold. He noted new research into COVID-19 in schools has continued to emerge in recent months.

"This thing with the coronavirus, obviously, we continue to learn about it all the time," Law said. "And we know, at least a preponderance of the evidence is, as I read in an article recently, that there's not transmission happening in the school setting, which is not to say that it doesn't happen when students are in parties or outside of school, in those kinds of contexts. But inside the school itself, the evidence is suggesting that the risk of transmission in the school is not great."

The superintendent contrasted current trends — nearly three months of declining infections — with the rocketing rate of new COVID-19 cases the board confronted in November.

"We can't say we'll be safe. Anyone who says 'safety' in this situation is using an incorrect word," he said. "What we're trying to do is to reduce risk, and one of the things that we're learning is that the risk of transmissions in schools — particularly those schools that are correctly and consistently practicing mitigation — the risk of transmission is very low. That has to be considered as well."

Board President Jodi Shapira said district officials had been following the advice of public health experts, unlike other high school districts in the county.

"It's been really difficult to be one of the few high schools in Lake County who has been using science, Lake County [Health Department] and IDPH for their guidelines. I have been really, really proud of our board and proud of the people here to continue following those," Shapira said. "I think it was important that we use science and the experts to help steer us in the direction we wanted to go. But hearing lately about all the psychological impact that we've had, I guess it is now time for us to pivot. I still strongly believe that remote learning with robust and frequent services is a better educational tool. But we must pivot."

The lone board member to vote against a move to hybrid learning was Dan Struck, who suggested that students would have a better educational experience once all teachers who wish to be vaccinated receive both doses and then wait weeks for the vaccine to take full event.

"Nothing has really happened that should change our evaluation of when school should be open to more general in-person instruction," Struck said. "Because everyone else has decided to ignore metrics and provide a poor imitation of in-building instruction does not mean that we should follow along."

Struck said his desire to stick with the district's fully remote learning plan does not mean that he does not care about students.

"It means that we take into account the needs of kids who desperately need to be in the buildings, be they kids who learn differently, be they kids who come from a different social, ethnic or racial background, or be they kids who lack technology," Struck said. "We have to make sure that those kids are in the building when they need to be in the building but unfortunately even though those students desperately need to be in the buildings, those are the same students who, in many instances, have chosen to remain remote. There's an inequity there and it's something we desperately need to address."

Board member Stacey Meyer said the cost-benefit structure of remaining in remote learning has changed as the pandemic has continued. She encouraged the community to recognize the volunteer school board members tasked with making public health decisions for the district are taking into account all available information.

"This has been the toughest thing I've grappled with," Meyer said. "So I just ask that people appreciate that people in this role are taking it very seriously and thinking through all the issues, and regardless of whether you agree with where we net out, you recognize that we have all done that."

EARLIER: District 113 Moves Toward Reopening, Plans Vaccines For DHS, HPHS Staff

The hybrid learning plan is scheduled to include two groups, each with 50 percent of students who opted for part-time in-person instruction.

Families are able to switch from hybrid to remote learning at any time. But families that have already opted for fully remote learning will have to wait until after March 15 to switch, according to Law.

Depending on student demand, the hybrid learning groups will be rebalanced and could be reduced from 50 percent to 25 percent of interested students if significantly more students sign up for in-person instruction next quarter, the superintendent said in a message to families.

Administrators are also negotiating with the District 113 Education Association, or the DEA, the non-union bargaining unit that represents district staff, to determine how to handle staff who do not wish to return for medical or family reasons.

The District 113 board is set to hold a committee meeting Monday evening to continue to discussing proposals for coronavirus surveillance testing for students and staff to detect asymptomatic people, in addition to the rapid antigen tests set aside for students or staff who report COVID-19 symptoms while at school.

The testing is expected to be offered to all students and staff, regardless of whether they go to the school buildings, according to a message from the superintendent.

On Wednesday, the Deerfield and Highland Park high school principals are also set to give a presentation about hybrid learning plans. Mass vaccination of district staff is set to begin Sunday.

Watch: Full Township High School District 113 School Board Feb. 1, 2021, Special Meeting »