From the Superintendent

Providing a safe learning environment along with having students in-person remains a priority of the CDC, IDPH, SCHD, ISBE, and our District.  On Friday, January 22, 2022, in conjunction with the Stephenson County Health Department (SCHD), we put all 1st grade, 5th grade, and 7th grade on an adaptive pause, due to the high numbers of positive cases in those grade levels over the past 10 days.  Our nurse is tasked with contact tracing every positive case for the entire district.  Pursuant to 77 Ill. Admin. Code 690.361, districts and schools are required to investigate the occurrence of cases and suspect cases in schools and identify close contacts for purposes of determining whether students or school personnel must be excluded from school premises, extracurricular events, or any other event organized by the school.  As you can imagine, having one person doing this work, testing students, watching video, interviewing students, contacting parents and the SCHD, along with her regular nursing duties, and creating and maintaining medical records can be daunting.  With the acute influx of positive cases in those grade levels, it was nearly impossible to contact trace effectively or efficiently.  It remains the goal of our District to have students in-person learning as much as possible.  So, as best as we can, we are catching up on contact tracing and verifying vaccination status of our students in order for some of them to return prior to January 31, as long as they are symptom free.  Along with all this happening, our nurse is quarantined this week as well.  Please be patient with us, as we are trying to manage and navigate the situation as best as we can, with the priorities being safety of staff and students and in-person learning.