D-86 Student Leaders Speak About School Reopenings

HINSDALE, IL — Officials at Hinsdale High School District 86 have talked a lot about this year's reopening during school board meetings. At Thursday's session, a few students, including two leaders, weighed in.

Heather Raslan, a Hinsdale Central student who is the school's new liaison to the board, surveyed classmates on how they felt about the district's decision to start the school year remotely. Most, she told the board, understood why the district took that action.

"That being said, while students believe e-learning is sustainable for now and can be sustainable in the short-term, many are concerned it will not be effective over the course of many more weeks and especially not an entire semester," Raslan said.

Students, she said, lament a lack of information on their return to the classroom. While they understand the difficulties of phasing in in-person lessons, she said, "this has left many students hopeless."

"Only three weeks into school, they are feeling burnt out and overwhelmed unfortunately," Raslan said.

Part of this, she said, can be blamed on the 10 hours a day of average screen time because of remote learning. "That's extremely demanding and unfortunately can be extremely detrimental," she said.

Carson Kotecki, the new student board liaison for South, told officials that students were "bummed" about not returning to school.

"However, this new iteration of remote learning has been effective thus far. Compared to last year, students seem more focused and responsive in class, eager to learn as much as they can in this remote environment," Kotecki said.

Other students submitted written comments. One of them was Eric Seppanen, a Central sophomore. He called himself a high achiever wanting to go to an elite college.

"Online school is not real school," he said. "There is absolutely no substitute for the learning that happens in the classroom."

He said remote learning has caused him to do twice the work this year to get B's when he got straight A's last year.

"School is not just a place where people go to learn. It's also a place where people go to socialize. Not being around other people takes a huge mental toll on students," Seppanen said. "Those who are advocating for online education are hurting my education and taking away from my social life and mental state."

School officials said Thursday they hope to have a quarter of students in class on the week of Oct. 5.