Deerfield School District 109 Switches Back to Remote Learning

DEERFIELD, Ill.- In the wake of rising cases of COVID-19 across Illinois, Deerfield School District 109 will be switching all of their locations back to online learning effective Monday, Oct. 19, the district said Friday.

In a press release, concerns over the spike of COVID-19 cases were cited as the reason for the transition back to online classes. While the release did acknowledge that the decision would likely "please some and anger others", it stated that the risk of coronavirus was too high to continue with in-person learning safely.

District 109 will stay in a remote learning capacity until COVID-19 cases fall back to steadily acceptable levels for at least a week. Also noted was the fact that no schedules or class times would be changing, at least for the time being. District 109 also scheduled pickup times for students to gather necessary supplies from their classes.

One of the main metrics used by the district to make this decision was the incidence rate of COVID-19 in the 60015 zip code. Currently, the Lake County Health Department cites a safe level for hybrid learning to be 14 per 100,000 people. Recent preliminary data showed the incidence rate at 28.6 per 100,000 people, significantly higher than the safe threshold.

District 109 has put in place stringent guidelines for addressing the pandemic, including criteria for individual classrooms, buildings and district-wide planning. Each building will undergo significant contact tracing to ensure that no new cases of COVID-19 are identified.

The press release also addressed concerns within the Deerfield community regarding lax behavior surrounding COVID-19 precautions. These include reports of both parents and students not wearing masks and ignoring social distancing guidelines. The district noted that it is "disrespectful to this community, to our student body, and to every resident in Deerfield when individuals choose not to follow the rules."

Deerfield School District 109 includes Kipling Elementary School, Walden Elementary School, South Park Elementary School, Caruso Middle School, Wilmot Elementary School and Shepard Middle School.

For updates regarding the remote learning plan, visit dps109.org.