PEORIA, Ill. — As Illinois waits to see how the COVID-19 situation progresses over the summer, Peoria Public School District 150 is busy putting together a plan for what a return to in-person instruction this fall would look like.
Superintendent Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat has assembled a committee to design and submit such a plan to her by June 15, with hopes of getting it codified by June 30 via a board of education vote.
The committee in question includes a variety of stakeholders, including union members, staff, school board members, parents, and even students.
The plan the committee drafts will cover six areas of concern.
A subcommittee was assigned to each area.
The instruction subcommittee is handling logistics for meals, special needs students, social and emotional support, athletics instruction, and a no-return policy for students and staff.
That subcommittee is also in charge of what is perhaps the million-dollar question: what the best option is for the fall, with regards to whether instruction should be remote, in-person, or in a hybrid fashion.
Kherat said the answer to that question could contain flexibility.
“We have so many pieces to our puzzle. We have over 13,000 students we have to safeguard,” she said.
“For me, personally, I love the idea of providing choices for our families, even under phase five, when we’re looking at who reopens with all students present. I suspect as we go through this traumatic experience, for some there will still be some distress, and I would be open to providing families and even staff an option to continue to do their work remotely.
“I’m not a one-size-fits-all person.”
Other subcommittees have other important decisions to make.
The wellness subcommittee was put in charge of a protection plan for staff and students, the enforcement of PPE, hand washing, social distancing, wellness checks, visitor policy, sickness policy for staff and students, quarantine areas, transportation home, and sanitation policy for buildings, buses, commons areas, and high-touch surfaces.
Kherat admitted this subcommittee was tasked with one of the toughest obstacles: vehicular logistics.
“I just spoke with my transportation guy, and just looking at buses and how we’re going to do that, and the conversation is around one kid per seat,” she said.
“All we could probably do is to serve the students we’re mandated to serve. That would be our special needs students and our homeless students.”
Other subcommittees include technology — in charge of device distribution, collection, and sanitation — and operations, finance, and human resources.
The region of the state that includes Peoria is set to move Friday into phase three of Restore Illinois. Schools may not return to any in-person instruction until phase four.
