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Unit 5 Reopening Plan Would Bring Older Students To School Only 2 Days Per Week

Unit 5 district offices
Staff
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WGLT
Presuming the Unit 5 school board approves the plan Wednesday night, families will have until July 29 to decide between in-person and online instruction for the fall semester.

Unit 5 families will have about a week to decide whether to send their kids to school or learn from home this fall, under the district’s COVID-19 reopening plan released Monday.

Even if junior high and high school students choose in-person instruction, they’ll only be at their school buildings two days per week, according to the plan. K-5 and Pre-K students would still go every day. Masks will be required unless a child is eating or outside.

“Our plan provides families with choices,” Unit 5 Superintendent Kristen Weikle said in a YouTube video. “We recognize that what’s right for one family might not be right for another. We ask that parents respect their friends’ and neighbors’ decisions, just as we’ll respect our parents’ decisions for their children.”

Presuming the Unit 5 school board approves the plan Wednesday night, families will have until July 29 to decide between in-person and online instruction for the fall semester. Families, such as those with students who have an underlying health condition, must commit to the online option for the entire semester.

The start of school is delayed until Aug. 24.

For in-person students in grades 6 through 12, Wednesdays will be a remote learning day for everyone. Students whose last names begin with the letters A-K will attend in-person on Mondays and Thursdays. Everyone else will be in-person Tuesdays and Fridays. (In contrast District 87’s older students will attend every day, albeit with a modified schedule.)

Unit 5’s K-5 students will attend Monday-Friday from 7:45 a.m. to 2:10 p.m., dismissing 20 minutes early to make up lost teacher planning time due to COVID-19 related restrictions. Some elementary schools may stagger dropoff times to accommodate an expected increase in parents electing to drive, rather than bus, their kids each day.

Unit 5 hedged its announcement by saying things could change if cases or testing positivity rates spike in McLean County.

“It is very likely that at some point this year we will ALL be remote learning for a period of time as a result of state closure, local closure, local outbreak, or lack of available healthy staff to conduct in-person instruction,” the district said in a statement.

Other notable parts of the plan:

  • Every Unit 5 student will be issued a device. Younger students will get a tablet; older students will receive a Chromebook.
  • Cafeterias will be open; students will not eat in their classrooms.
  • All students and staff will be required to either self-certify their health or be subject to a temperature and symptoms check before entering.

Unit 5's reopening plan.
Unit 5's reopening plan.

The plan was developed with input from Unit 5’s Pandemic Advisory Committee, which Weikle said included administrators, teachers, staff, union representatives, and others. The district has received over 6,000 responses from a family survey.

Ryan Denham is the digital content director for WGLT.
Dana Vollmer is a reporter with WGLT. Dana previously covered the state Capitol for NPR Illinois and Peoria for WCBU.