With winter break coming to a close, schools around the nation geared up for returning to school for the second semester. Still, students are packed into classrooms and shuttled onto buses, and COVID has reared its big, ugly head after this cold travel season—just in time for school. Schools began to take precautions such as delaying the start of school, temporarily switching online, or even canceling school for around two weeks. But not our district.
According to The Patch, many schools surrounding Oswego took extra precautions: Chicago Public Schools voted to immediately go remote, Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 used a budgeted emergency day to cancel school due to short staffing from COVID, Elgin Area School District U46 closed five schools on Jan. 5 and Glenbrook High School District 225 shifted to e-learning amid the COVID surge and did not plan to be back in person until Jan. 18.
SD308 sent its students and teachers back into schools during January, which according to data from New York Times Kendall County, Illinois COVID Case, and Risk Tracker was the month with the highest average cases in Kendall county since March 2020.
With an average of 175 cases per day, and the end of the holiday and traveling season, which only amped up COVID, students around the state should not have been subjected to endangering themselves for their education, especially when this January saw more cases than the months where students were not in person back in 2020 and 2021.
When asked via email about sd 308s school board deciding to send students back in person for second semester, Dr. Donna Marino, president of SD308’s board of education, shared that the board did not talk about any other options other than immediately returning in person for the second semester.
“We have our safety plan in place and did not feel it necessary to go remote,” Dr. Marino said.
However, the district’s metric breakdown of COVID and exclusion cases shows that from Jan. 24 to Jan. 30, 142 students and five staff members came in contact with COVID, as well as an additional 113 students and 12 staff members who tested positive. This data updates hourly and shows how the amount of positive cases and people who have come in contact with COVID grows dramatically over the week. It is also important to note the metric breakdown depends on self-reporting, and therefore there is room for error; these numbers may be greater than reported.
SD308 offers some students the ability to do school from home, and join Google Meets to be a part of their in-person classes. The catch is, students are only given that access if they are exposed to COVID and are currently in the process of quarantining or are positive for COVID. The district does not use this resource to provide safety and comfort to its own students in their learning environment.
At the beginning of the semester, the district updated its quarantine rules to match new CDC guidelines, reducing quarantine time from 10 days to five, regardless of vaccination status. Although the CDC announced these changes, it is quite ridiculous to reduce quarantine time in a school setting, especially when there is an option for students with COVID or exposed to COVID to learn from home.
Allowing students to return to school that early is made more absurd because of the next steps those students who have returned before the 10-day quarantine period have to follow: they must wear a mask at all times. Wearing a mask at all times is not necessarily negative; in fact, SD308 has a strict mask policy, yet that policy grows and requires a more strict wearing of masks at all times only when returning to school before the 10-day quarantine period.
The weekly parent update from Jan. 14 gave more insight on what the guidelines stated for students who returned early. Students must completely wear masks at all times, and be strictly separated when having to remove their masks. “This could be a more socially distanced table, individual desks, or different room/space for all students who are returning following a quarantine or isolation,” the announcement reads. Continuing mask-wearing “outdoors when students are in groups, which includes a recess at elementary.” As well as “Students participating in band who require the use of their mouth to play an instrument can participate in class but will not be permitted to actively play.” Separating students from their peers, especially elementary-aged children, could potentially be dangerous, and frankly sad.
The separation and exclusion of students can simply be averted by safely keeping students who have been exposed to or have COVID home for the full duration of their quarantine, or until they obtain a negative test.
As a student, I clearly see the benefit of wearing masks, and avidly advocate for the proper use of masks, yet the fact remains that these guidelines and extra measures having to be put in place make it obvious and abundantly clear that it is not safe for students to return before the 10-day isolation/quarantine period without negative test results.
The combination of sending students and staff back to school while Illinois saw its most COVID cases ever, and the update in COVID guidelines at school, was a recipe for disaster. Returning to school should have been done as safely as possible for public health.
That would include not applying the decreased quarantine time to our district’s COVID guidelines, possibly delaying the start of school, or using our already established online resources, which would have only been needed for at least two weeks.
These are big decisions that have to be made for the safety of our students, staff, and the ripple effect it will have on our communities. I urge parents to have their children stay home for the entirety of their 10-day quarantine period if they have contracted COVID.
Most importantly, I urge our school district to do better with the thought of students, staff, and public health in mind.
