Ottawa High School’s first day called ‘a success’

At the close of the first day of what is already a very different 2020-21 school year, Ottawa High School Superintendent Michael Cushing met with administrators to discuss how Day 1 played out amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"The consensus in the room was the day went well," Cushing said. "It was a success."

It's one day down, three to go in order to meet the administration's short-term goal of making it through this first week and getting every student in the building to meet with teachers and pick up learning materials – two things that may prove vital if the local or statewide COVID-19 outbreak and response causes the school to move to all-remote learning at some point in the future.

"Right now as we look at this, our goal is to get through this week," Cushing said. "We're hopeful – and we think [Monday] was a success – but we'd just like to get through this week.

"We are very much prepared to go to remote learning when and if it's necessary."

Cushing added Ottawa High School had "absolutely zero issues with masks" Monday and the school would continue to "re-evaluate daily."

"I'm not trying to be pessimistic," he said, "just realistic. Realistically speaking, if we can at least get through this week, we'd feel pretty fortunate."

From Monday through Labor Day, Ottawa High plans to have a quarter of the student population – chosen alphabetically – attend in-person each day, Monday through Thursday, while the rest of the school's students work remotely. In-person learners, all wearing masks, will attend 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., spending 30 minutes in each class.

All students will work remotely on Fridays.

It's not an ideal situation ... but these are not ideal times.

"Bringing in 25% of the students worked logistically for them to social distance ... and I thought the self-certification process worked well this morning for students and parents," Cushing said. "There really wasn't any aspect of the day we didn't think was a success.

"Only having 25% of students, we understand, has its limits academically, but putting the health and safety of students and staff first, I think we had a successful first day."

Streator Elementary ushers in the new school year

Although there were plenty of changes made to protect students during COVID-19, Streator Elementary Superintendent Lisa Parker said that Monday felt the same as any other first day of school.

"It was a typical first day of school for us," Parker said. "We are excited to see the students again [Tuesday]. No changes on our end."

At Streator elementary schools, the student body was divided into two groups alphabetically. The A group attended Monday and will return Thursday; the B group will attend its first day Tuesday and again on Friday. Wednesday will be a remote learning day for all students.