Reopen Joliet District 86 Schools: New Petition

JOLIET, IL —Joliet School Superintendent Theresa Rouse and Joliet District 86 school officials are starting to face pushback to their decision in January to keep thousands of grade school students on remote learning programs for this entire school year.

On Monday, Jennifer Wysocki started an online petition on the popular platform Change.org. Her petition is called "Open Joliet District 86 schools for in-person learning."

Her petition reads in part: "Teachers are being vaccinated. There has been no attempt to begin hybrid learning or return to full in-person learning. Most of the districts around Joliet have returned in some form. Children are dealing with depression. This is a school district with many at risk children. Sign this petition to voice your opinion to the school board for the March meeting."

On Jan. 21, Joliet Patch published a news article that was headlined, "No Return To Classrooms For Joliet District 86: Rouse." The article read: While Joliet Catholic Academy, Troy Community School District and Plainfield are already returning to regular classroom activities for their students, Joliet's largest public grade school district is not following that path.

On Monday night, Wysocki announced that she was thrilled to have 149 people sign her petition on its first day. Now that Joliet Patch is drawing attention to her petition, the numbers may increase even more.

By 6:30 p.m., Wysocki's petition had garnered more than 500 signatures.

According to its website, District 86 has 15 elementary schools, four junior high schools, one Early Childhood Center and one alternative school. The district enrollment at the end of September was 10,337 students.

The district has 1,505 employees including 750 teachers.

If you want to check out the petition to bring Joliet's grade school students back to their classrooms, go here.