CHAMPAIGN — Dozens of Champaign school district parents lined up outside of the Mellon Administration Building before Monday’s board meeting to urge the district to move to a more comprehensive return to in-person school.
The biggest point of contempt was the district’s plan to keep middle and high school students remote schedule in the mornings but offering two hours each afternoon for teachers to meet with students.
“We just weren’t happy with the choices we were given from the district with their plan to return to learning,” said Ron Baker, the parent of two middle-schoolers and one elementary school student and the husband of board member Gianina Baker. “We don’t necessarily want to take away the option of online learning, but we would like a more progressive plan about how we can get back to in-person learning.”
After school-by-school discussions, though, the middle and high school principals and district administration decided the model they’ll use made more sense than the hybrid model used at other districts.
Around half of Champaign school district families who responded to a survey said they’d like their students to return to some sort of in-person school.
A hybrid schedule would allow students to return in person every other day, leaving them to watch class online half of the time as their teachers taught students face to face. With half of the student body remaining completely virtual, that would leave three quarters of students watching online each day rather than taking part in an interactive online class.
“Teachers really struggled thinking, ‘What would it be like for three-fourths of the student body every day to simply be watching TV,’” Champaign Central Principal Joe Williams said during the meeting, “and that’s what the hybrid model is that other schools are using … We thought, ‘Well, let’s see if we can continue doing the same thing in the mornings, the distance learning model, and what would it look like if we brought in students in the afternoon.’”
Furthermore, because of capacity issues and social distancing, a full return to a hybrid model would have likely meant high school students would only be able to be in school once every three days, Superintendent Susan Zola said.
Parents at Monday’s rally referred to the two hours each afternoon as a “study hall,” and the schools originally called it “support.”
Those words may be misleading. While they’re still developing the exact plans for students, Williams said they’ll be more than catch-up sessions for struggling students.
“People hear the word ‘supports,’ and they think remediation,” Williams said. “We’re going to be working with our faculties across all of the campuses, middle school and high school and start opening up discussions with people that are not just remediation. That’s not our sole focus, but what are some things that we can do to connect to the social atmosphere at school. It doesn’t have to be with a remediation focus.”
At the elementary school level, all students have the opportunity to return in person for two-and-a-half hours, four days each week. Teachers will teach in person for half of the day and virtually the other half.
At high school, the vast amount of classes make it difficult to follow that type of schedule, because students take several different classes each day with different classmates.
“I get their frustration, for sure,” Champaign Federation of Teachers co-Vice President and Centennial teacher Mike Sitch said, referring to the parents at the rally.
“I think we’re all struggling to understand what the best course forward is. I think doing full-time in-person, there might be some logistical issue … Everyone wants to be back together, there’s no question about that. I think everyone has kids’ interest in mind and the safety of community … I think largely, the (parents at the rally’s) questions are what these afternoons are going to look like at the secondary level. I think we’re trying to figure that out. I don’t exactly know either.”
Parents at the rally also complained about the quality of the district’s virtual learning model, and board member Gianina Baker echoed those concerns.
“I don’t think we should call what we are doing online learning when we don’t know if kids are learning,” she said.
For now, parents will likely have to make do with having an in-person option at the middle and high school levels that works in conjunction with and does not replace their online learning.
“That interaction, in the hybrid model, (teachers were) at best going to see (their) students maybe twice a week,” Centennial Principal Chuck Neitzel said, “whereas in this model that’s virtual, I get to contact my students every day. We heard that feedback from our teachers very concerned about the contact with their students. We tried to develop a model that could meet that.”
In addition to its diagnostic, on-site PCR testing for symptomatic students at staff being offered through Carle, Unit 4 is progressing with talks with the University of Illinois SHIELD team about its saliva test.
“We are very close to two layers,” Zola said. “They’re looking for a pilot for an elementary campus that would be surveillance testing for students and staff. They’re also looking to set up surveillance testing for staff, and we are probably a few weeks away from the logistics of that.”
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Coronavirus response | Champaign district officials explain in-person plan after parents' protest - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette
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