Woodstock District 200 changes back-to-school plans, will start year remotely

Woodstock School District 200 will start the school year with full remote learning, district officials said Tuesday night in a special board meeting.

The school board for the 6,300-student district, which had planned to open under a blended approach with morning and afternoon shifts, voted, 5-2, in favor of remote learning to start the year, running through at least Oct. 16.

District 200 is the latest local school district to adjust its back-to-school plans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Crystal Lake High School District 155, which had tentatively planned to go to hybrid learning, also decided to shift gears Tuesday evening, its board unanimously voting go to fully remote through at least Oct. 9.

District 200 Superintendent Mike Moan said the district will reevaluate any changes to remote learning by the end of September.

"The day we can get back, we have to," Moan said.

Board President Carl Gilmore said the district should continue to be flexible.

"This thing has been changing and morphing from day to day and week to week in such a way that setting a deadline ... things can change overnight in any direction," Gilmore said. "If we choose a remote learning program, in five weeks we may see a substantial difference of where this is going. If we go with remote learning, it should be open ended and not a deadline that we have to meet one way or another."

More information about the remote learning plan will be sent to families and shared when it is finalized, according to the District 200 website.

Moan said Tuesday he no longer felt comfortable with the blended plan the district released to families on July 16.

"The plan we presented, I felt good about it," Moan said. "I don't feel the same way today. It hurts me to say, because I want our kids in school more than anything. This is where they belong, this is where we can help them."

Moan questioned how current guidance would translate to the classroom, the district's buildings and even outside of school. The local health department, for example, said that an entire bus would have to be quarantined if one student tested positive, regardless of whether the students were wearing face coverings, Moan said.

"When you look at those factors, you really start to question," Moan said. "If you lose two or three bus drivers, now you worry about your ability to get anybody to school the next day. Then you start doing contact tracing. That's our nurse doing that, while also checking the temperatures of everyone in the building, checking symptoms for 400 to 500 people at the same time. I think it's probably overwhelming."

Board members Jacob Homuth and Jerry Miceli each voted against starting the year with remote learning. Miceli pointed to a survey of parents that found about 70% had indicated they would opt to send their children to schools for in-person instruction.

“It seems like it’s parents versus the teacher,” said Miceli, who also is a teacher at Vernon Hills High School. “I thought it was a win-win. I think it’s important that kids start off with their teachers, and I think it’s safe. If it wasn’t safe, I wouldn’t be speaking right now.”