Western Springs Schools Never Missed Day Last Year: Official

WESTERN SPRINGS, IL — Most school districts struggled with how to provide lunch during the pandemic. Western Springs School District 101 was no exception.

Officials from the four-school district said months ahead of time that they did not have enough space for all children to go to lunch while socially distanced. So they encouraged parents to pick up their students to take them off campus for lunch.

For the district, full in-person learning started April 5. Schools offered three hours of instruction in the morning, an hour of lunch and three hours in the classroom in the afternoon. The lunch plan required a "large assist" from parents to get their children off campus, according to district documents.

But school officials said they knew some parents would be unable to get their children for lunch. So officials allowed such students to have lunch at the school, Superintendent Brian Barnhart said this week.

"We worked with families who couldn't make it work," Barnhart said during an interview in his office. "There was no policy. It was generally off-campus lunch."

At each school, about 20 to 40 students stayed in for lunch, he said.

Some parents wondered why a Cinco de Mayo lunch during Teacher Appreciation Week and a retirement luncheon were allowed while lunch was mostly off campus for students.

As for Cinco de Mayo, staff had the choice of taking the lunch to their desks, sitting in the library or going to one of the tents, Barnhart said.

"It wasn't like it was a sit-down affair," he said.

This year, the retirement event was not held in a ballroom-like setting such as a nearby country club. It was held at Siegel's Cottonwood Farm in Lockport, with participants in a barn that was open on three sides.

"The point is that we didn't just do what we normally do and thumb our noses at the rules," Barnhart said.

In October, parents were surveyed about whether they wanted hybrid or full in-person education. More than 60 percent chose hybrid.

By the time of a March survey, however, two-thirds of parents chose full in-person instruction for their children.

In the district, students were in class at least part of the day every school day last year, Barnhart said. The one exception were the fifth grade classes at one of the schools because of five confirmed cases of the coronavirus, he said. The district never even closed its doors in the late fall when many of its counterparts were doing so, in what they called "adaptive pauses."

Western Springs School District 101 has about 1,400 students.