District 87 has assembled a task force of administrators, teachers and other district employees to help fine tune its e-learning program if schools remain closed in the fall because of the pandemic.
Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Diane Wolf said the district wants to more clearly define goals for students and get more information about resources to parents ahead of time.
She said if the district continues full-scale e-learning in the fall, it plans to use Google Classroom and the task force is exploring other online learning tools.
“We had 16 hours to put together a remote learning plan and we have three months now,” Wolf said. “I feel like we are going to be in good shape.”
Wolf said remote learning was a success over the last two months of the school year, given how quickly the district had to shift.
“We’re starting to look at the last two months in the rearview mirror, so we tend to forget as a society in crisis during that time,” Wolf said. “The learning environments people went through, even the most stable homes, had turbulence.”
Still, Wolf said teachers know many students will need time to catch up.
“Wherever your kid is, we are going to be ready for them, and we are going to have students who are behind,” Wolf conceded.
She noted that all teachers across the state and country will be looking to get students caught up and it’s something they are trained to handle each school year, though perhaps not as pronounced as following a pandemic.
Wolf said e-learning will offer teachers more flexibility in the future, adding some students prefer it.
She said the task force also will advise the District 87 school board on whether the district should continue remote learning on a broader scale if the Illinois State Board of Education allows schools to reopen in the fall. The reopening of schools is included in Phase 4 of Gov. JB Pritzker’s Restore Illinois plan. The state could move into that phase as early as June 26 if health care metrics continue to show improvement.
Digital divide
Wolf said even with laptops and home internet access ensured for every student, the school shutdown this spring revealed how wide the digital divide is.
For years, District 87 has provided laptops for each of its students in grades three through 12, and covered the cost of internet service for children who qualify for free- and reduced-cost lunch.
Wolf said it made a big difference how much internet capacity each student had with so many people at home.
“One of the big a-hahs for a lot of my colleagues and teachers in District 87 was the accessibility to technology in a household really impacted how often a student could connect with their teacher, their principal, etc.,” Wolf said.
While the district still is evaluating options for summer school, Wolf said the district will continue feeding children from low-income families through the summer, noting D-87 has served more than 95,000 meals for students during the pandemic.
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