Marengo area schools only public education systems in McHenry County still holding in-person learning

Two Marengo area school districts are now the only public education systems in McHenry County continuing to hold in-person learning after several other districts moved back to fully remote models in the past two weeks as COVID-19 caseloads surged across Illinois and the nation.

Local private schools in the county associated with the Catholic Diocese of Rockford have also mostly switched to remote learning until after the Thanksgiving holiday and have been directed to use the same model through most of January when students return from the winter holiday break.

Marengo-Union School District 165 Superintendent Lea Damisch said she planned to recommend the stick with its current model at Wednesday night's school board meeting. The model is fully in person but with shortened school days.

The decision follows a Tuesday order by Gov. JB Pritzker that put additional limitations on business activity and gatherings, known as Tier 3 mitigations. The new restrictions, which take effect Friday, do not specifically request schools to use a learning model with reduced live instruction.

Regardless, District 165 will have no in-person instruction next week due to parent-teacher conferences, which means fewer staff will be present in school buildings next week too, Damisch said.

The district has experienced 17 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff as of Tuesday, after staff had been in schools for 14 weeks and students for 13, Damisch said. The district's overall positivity rate has been 2% of tests taken.

"We have shared with our parents throughout the weeks that we will look at our internal data when making decisions and it is hard to justify closing schools for a 2% positivity rate," Damisch said. "But parents know that we may have to pivot quickly if we get a burst of positivity."

A transition into remote learning could also occur if the governor issues a stay-at-home order, Damisch said.

More students have opted to transition into in-person learning than those wanting to move from in-person to remote, she said.

"Parents are given the option to switch learning platforms at the end of each quarter and if a parent notified the school that they wanted to switch to remote immediately, we would honor that request," Damisch said.

At the end of the district’s last quarter 26 students returned to in-person, forcing the district to create three new sections to keep class numbers low, while four switched to remote. The district's next quarter begins Jan. 11 and so far, seven students have opted to switch to in person and two to remote.

Marengo Community High School District 154 remained in hybrid learning, with some in-person activity and some remote and no final decisions have been made to change at this point, Superintendent David Engelbrecht said in an email Wednesday.

Engelbrecht, who was unavailable for a phone interview Wednesday, did not provide any further details.

The two Marengo districts were among only three in McHenry County who started the school year with some form of in person learning. The third, neighboring Riley School District 18, last week transitioned into remote learning.

"Unfortunately, we have had three more positive [COVID-19] cases this week and an exposure that occurred outside of school hours creating an increase in students out for quarantine," a District 18 notice, that was unsigned by any particular official, stated earlier this month.

Similar moves were made by Wonder Lake-based Harrison School District 36, Nippersink District 2 and Richmond-Burton High School District 157, which all stopped the in-person academic activity they were holding and went into fully remote learning starting either this week or last, their district superintendents said.

Three Catholic schools in McHenry County — St. Margaret Mary in Algonquin, Montini in McHenry and St. John the Baptist in Johnsburg — cut on-campus learning from their plans either late last week or early this week and went to fully remote learning, with plans to resume in-person activity after the Thanksgiving holiday, said Michael Kagan, the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Rockford.

St. Thomas the Apostle School in Crystal Lake plans to go to fully remote learning Nov. 30 through Jan. 18. All Catholic schools in the Diocese of Rockford will run remote learning only from the start of school after the new year through the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, Kagan said.

"I think it’s a pretty good assumption that people are going to have interaction with people, including families and friends, they haven’t seen for a while over Christmas break," Kagan said.

Marian Central Catholic High School in Woodstock and St. Mary, also in Woodstock, will continue to hold some in-person learning until the December holiday break, Kagan said. Marian Central is remaining on its hybrid schedule until the break beginning after school Dec. 18, while St. Mary is running a split-day schedule with mornings in person and afternoons online. It also intends to stay on that schedule until Christmas break.

"However, if circumstances change over the next few weeks, both of these schools may consider altering their schedules," Kagan said.

McHenry Elementary School District 15 already plans to run remote only learning until mid-February. It is unknown whether other public school systems will follow suit with remote learning for at least two weeks after the December holiday break.

“We haven’t made a decision about January yet, and likely won’t until sometime in December,” Woodstock School District 200 spokesman Kevin Lyons said.