South Cook News

Parents and families of students who attend Oak Lawn Community High School District 229 recently received a letter from Superintendent Michael Riordan announcing the possibility that the district can implement its blended remote learning plan late this month.

In August, Riordan told parents and community members that they would not be able to implement the district's blended remote learning plan because the schools could not “effectively implement all of the safety expectations [in suddenly changed Illinois Department of Public Health guidance to the schools] to ensure the health and safety of students and staff with a high number of students present,” the letter states.  

Since that letter went out, the district has monitored the community spread of COVID-19 in suburban Cook County and has worked to improve its capacity to implement guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and the IDPH.

“I am happy to say that the trends are positive with all three of these factors," Riordan said in the letter. "The spread of the virus in our region has been stable with a slight downward trend. Recent adjustments to the CDC and IDPH safety guidelines will allow us to implement safety precautions with more success. And finally, our capacity to operate the school with hundreds of students [as opposed to a few dozen that we currently have attending daily] is improving.

Therefore, I’m cautiously optimistic that we can implement our Blended Remote Learning Plan, with some adjustments, in late October," he wrote.

Adjustments to the plan, to make the implementation possible, include the daily bell schedule and weekly class meeting schedule will remain consistent with the current full remote schedule and Green Group students will typically attend school for in person instruction on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Exceptions may be made during weeks when school is not open all five days of the week.

Also Grey Group students will typically attend school for in person instruction on Thursdays and Fridays. Exceptions may be made during weeks when school is not open all five days of the week. Zero Hour classes will continue to operate on a full remote learning model. Families that were originally placed into the blended plan will have the opportunity to select placement into the full remote learning plan.

Finally, on days when they are not scheduled to attend classes in the building, students will continue to attend their classes remotely via WebEx. This also includes students who have opted for the full remote learning plan.

There is a tentative schedule for transition to blended remote learning.

For the week of Oct. 26, Monday is a remote learning day for all students. Freshman students who opted for the blended remote plan will attend for in-person instruction Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday following the updated “Green-Gray” attendance schedule.

For the week of Nov. 2, all students in the blended remote plan attend for in-person instruction Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, following an updated “Green-Grey” attendance schedule. There is no school Nov. 3 for the election.

Parents of students placed into the blended learning remote plan can transition to full remote learning plan for the rest of the semester. 

More information is to come, including weekly and monthly attendance calendars and details on the bell schedules.