District 70 Parents, Students Rally For In-Person Instruction

LIBERTYVILLE, IL – Evan Williamson has watched as his first-grade son has struggled with not being around fellow students while learning remotely this fall. While things may have changed when students were forced to learn from home in the spring at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Williamson's son's difficulties come at a time when parents have repeatedly told District 70 officials of their desire to have students return to the classroom for in-person classes.

Although Williamson says he has no complaints about the instruction his son has received from his teacher this fall, the fact students are not even being given the option to return to school doesn’t sit well with a large number of parents.

Months after an estimated 70 percent of district parents and more than 90 percent of teachers voiced support for a return to the classroom, parents have become frustrated by the lack of transparency school officials have shown since that time.

So as the Board of Education met Monday night and was presented with a recommendation that the district gradually move toward a hybrid model beginning in late October, hundreds of parents and students held a rally outside asking for answers.

Williamson said Monday that school officials have pointed to a lack of staffing and to the number of continued confirmed coronavirus cases as reasons why won't reopen classrooms. However, parents cite the relatively flat nature the virus has taken in Lake County in recent months and question data that comes from health officials citing why it is not yet prudent for schools to re-open, Williamson said.

As school officials continue to push back against in-person learning, however, Williamson said they have not communicated what barriers actual stand between them and in-person learning, which led to Monday night’s rally.

“We want to definitely demonstrate that parents are still overwhelmingly supportive of sending children back (to the classroom) in person,” Williamson told Patch said Monday. “ … We know e-school is not an acceptable long-term solution. It’s barely an acceptable short-term solution.”

Under the hybrid plan, kindergarten and first graders would be allowed to return to school in morning and afternoon cohorts for two hours and 15 minutes per day before the plan would extend to students through fifth grade.

The hybrid plan doesn’t go far enough, parents said, which leads them to push for the return to in-person classes that other suburban Chicago districts have returned to on a full-time basis.

Lauren Marks, the mother of two District 70 students who also works as a language and speech pathologist in schools, characterizes the situation as devastating. While she understands the challenge teachers face trying to educate students in the current environment, she says that the impact is even greater for the students themselves.

Marks said that remote learning is “entirely too limiting" and is not effective and says it is unwise for the district to continue a substitute for in-person learning. Because students are multi-dimensional learners who learn through their senses, Marks said that remote learning does not allow for that in the ways that the in-person model does.

Now, as part of the group that is attempting to impact change in Libertyville, Marks hopes there is indeed strength in numbers after parents, she said, have grown tired of receiving messages from school officials that promise that the district is listening, but that has not gotten school doors to open, she said.

“It’s inspiring what collaboration and teamwork can do especially when there is so much divide,” Marks told Patch on Monday. “It’s just a heartwarming message that we can all, regardless of religious affiliations or political affiliations, can come together and do what’s truly in the best interest of our students.”

She added: “I’m hoping (the board) truly starts to reflect on what the community is asking for because that has not been taken into consideration.”