Return to in-person learning on January 19

January 11, 2021

Topic: Updates

January 11, 2021

Dear CCSD 21 families,

District 21 has closely monitored COVID-19 infection data at the local, county, and state level since the beginning of our district wide adaptive pause on November 23, 2020. While current data continues to reflect a high rate of community spread of COVID-19, it is also substantially lower when compared to November’s rates. Likewise, school based faculty and staff health data is strong.

Given those factors, CCSD21 will resume our in-person hybrid learning as scheduled on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. Schedules for in-person learning remain unchanged from those before this adaptive pause. Distance Learning Academy students will continue to learn virtually.

To ensure consistency in student learning and stability in classroom assignments, those families who wish to change from in-person to remote learning, or vice versa, may request a change that would go in effect on Monday, March 1, for Trimester 3. More details on this request process will be forthcoming.

Health & Safety Requirements for in-person students
All individuals at school or on a bus are required to wear a face covering at all times.

Families must also submit a certification of health for every in-person child every school day, regardless of if the child will be physically present in school that day. An email reminder to complete the certification will be sent to the parent/guardian email address(es) on file every morning at 4:00 AM and the certification MUST be completed 30 minutes before school begins. Students showing any signs of illness, or experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms, may not attend school. A student will not be allowed to enter a CCSD21 building until their health can be verified.

Option 1: From the parent’s daily reminder email:

  • Click the blue “Report” button.
  • Select language.
  • Respond to health certification questions.
  • Click the blue “Submit” button.
  • Repeat, as needed, for each CCSD21 child.

The reminder email is from [email protected] and the subject line will begin with “(Wheeling Ccsd21)”. Please add this email address to your contacts and check your Spam folder.

Option 2: From the student’s Chromebook:

  • Visit https://student.safetyipass.com/
  • Click “Sign In With SSO”
  • Enter student’s email address. Click “Continue”.
    • If asked to sign in on a Google page, enter the student’s email address again. Click “Next”. Enter student’s password (ID number with 000 at the end. Example: 12345000).
  • Respond to certification questions. Click “Submit”.
  • Repeat, as needed, for each CCSD21 child.

Health Metrics
The district will continue to monitor multiple sources of COVID-19 infection data and will implement adaptive pauses to in-person instruction at the classroom, school, or district level as conditions require.

Sources include data from the Cook County Department of Public Health and the Illinois Department of Public Health, as well as the COVID-19 Dashboard maintained by the Northwestern Medicine’s Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center. In addition we are tracking our internal data on the CCSD21 COVID-19 Data Dashboard.

Scenarios in which we would make an immediate decision to return to an adaptive pause include individual schools crossing our 3% confirmed active COVID cases threshold or if an order to return to remote learning was issued by the Governor, Illinois State Board of Education, or state or county public health officials.

Any other decision to return to an adaptive pause will be made with a solid understanding of trending data, including current rates of exclusion or confirmed cases within our schools, and with as much advance notice given to families as possible. Please continue to consider your family’s contingency plan should a closure occur at the classroom, school, or District level. We will communicate via regular school and district level communication systems like ParentSquare, as well as via social media and the district website, as soon as necessary.

We look forward to resuming in-person instruction on January 19th and welcoming our in-person students back into our classrooms. Please do not hesitate to contact your school principal with any questions or concerns.

Respectfully,

Dr. Michael Connolly
Superintendent