The Dunlap school board surprised many students, parents, and teachers last week when it approved a full return to school this year despite the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of a hybrid "condensed" option that would have sent students home to learn remotely in the afternoons.
Incoming Dunlap seniors Aryan Paul, Aasiyah Adnan, Rafael Davis, and Anjali Yedavalli started a petition asking the board to reconsider that vote. It now has more than 1,600 signatures.
Davis said he believes it's "almost inevitable" full remote learning will return this school year, given COVID-19 patterns in other states with open schools.
"If we already start with a hybrid, condensed option, we would already be doing remote learning at home for half of the day," he said. "That way we could seamlessly (move) from that in-school/at-home learning to fully at-home learning, if need be."
Gov. JB Pritzker sent students home for the rest of the spring semester last March as the COVID-19 pandemic set in.
The students are lobbying the Dunlap school board to convene a special meeting to hear them out before the board's next regularly scheduled meeting on Aug. 12.
Yedavalli said while the students don't know everything there is to know about COVID-19, they hope the school board listens to their concerns about a full return to school.
"We do believe that our ideas and our service has merit, and that it has backing by the community. And for people to take us seriously, and to not just look at us as a bunch of kids just trying to do something. I want us to really engage in that, and I want people to see that," she said.
Dunlap School Board President Abby Humbles said the board, which approved the full return-t0-school plan on a 6-1 vote, considered it to be the best path forward.
"The board considered the valid points brought up by the four students as well as other constituents, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics. We found it overwhelmingly in the best interest of all students to offer full-day school," she said in an e-mail.
The Return to School Plan is here.
Some other districts, like Morton 709, also are opting for as much in-person learning as possible. Peoria Public Schools District 150 is utilizing a hybrid option, while Canton Union District 66 and East Peoria schools are starting off the school year remotely.
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