St. Andrew Reopens With Full In-Person Learning Amid Pandemic

ROMEOVILLE, IL — While the Valley View School District has opted for remote learning for the beginning of the school year, St. Andrew's School resumed in-person classes, amid the pandemic, starting Monday.

Principal Carol Albreski had said in an earlier post on the school website that in anticipation of the reopening "the teachers and I already been working on a rough draft."

According to the final plan:

• All individuals in school buildings, including all public and nonpublic schools that serve students in prekindergarten through grade 12, must wear face coverings at all times unless they are younger than 2 years of age; have trouble breathing; or are unconscious, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to remove the cover without assistance.
• St. Andrew will have disposable masks available for students who forget their mask. The school will also provide one cloth face mask for each student with the school logo at the beginning of the year.
• Students will have their temperatures taken each morning. If a student has a temperature below 100.4 degrees, they will be cleared to enter the building. Students who have a higher reading will be sent back home to follow quarantine procedures.
• Students exhibiting symptoms of illness throughout the day, will have their temperature taken in their homeroom and sent directly to the quarantine area and parents will be notified for pickup.
• When students enter their homeroom, they will sanitize their hands by using the automatic hand sanitizers installed in each classroom and go directly to their desks until the teacher calls them to unpack their supplies in alternating lockers.
• Desks and chairs will be social distanced within the classroom. All desks will have shields on the desktop.
• Students will eat lunch in their homerooms. Desks will be wiped down before students eat and after they are done. Individual hot lunches will be delivered to the classrooms.
• Students who bring their lunch will keep it in their lockers until lunchtime.
• Students will have outdoor recess in the designated play areas using the homeroom supply of playground equipment.
• Remote Learning will be available during in-person instruction for those families whose circumstances require remote learning.

Read the full plan here.

Just like St. Andrew, all other Diocese of Joliet schools will also be reopening for in-person learning this fall.

Bishop Richard Pates, Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Joliet had appointed a task force headed by Fr. Burke Masters in June, to prepare the schools so that each will fully comply with necessary provisions to make the particular school safe in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

"The stakeholders of our schools – parents and children, administrators and teachers, priests and parishioners – very much desire to see our schools fully functioning this Fall," Pates said during his June announcement.

"Much like the re-opening committees that worked on re-starting masses in the diocesan churches, there has been a re-opening committee that is focused on reviewing each of the plans for the schools," Superintendent of Catholic Schools Michael J. Boyle said. "School principals drafted plans and submitted them to the Return to School committee. This team has reviewed the plans and is in the process of returning the review rubrics and certifications back to schools."

Despite the differing opinions on this, Boyle said the guidelines they are following are "universally advocated by recognized experts and medical scientists."

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