Students to start split schedule while HMS remains closed due to mold

HINSDALE – Hinsdale Middle School (HMS) will be closed until at least Tuesday next week as crews finish cleaning up small concentrations of mold, but students will be able to head back to class this week – sort of.

The District 181 Board of Education voted, 6-1, Tuesday to implement a split schedule with Clarendon Hills Middle School (CHMS) starting Thursday. The "half-day schedule" will have CHMS students attending class from 7 to 11:30 a.m., while HMS will attend from noon to 4:30 p.m.

School Board President Marty Turek voted against the split schedule option.

"No one wants this to go on indefinitely," said Jill Vorobiev, school board vice president. "Our expectation right now is that this will not go beyond next Tuesday or Wednesday."

The district plans to send out specifics to parents within the next day, including how transportation will work.

At Tuesday's emergency board meeting at Elm School, Gary Frisch, assistant superintendent of business, said the district is working on exact routes for buses, but students who walk to school would go to HMS, and then be shuttled to CHMS. The same would then go for the end of the day.

As for getting materials from students' lockers at HMS, Superintendent Renee Schuster said the district did not want to interfere with any of the work currently being done by Integrity Environmental Services and SERVPRO.

"Our decision was we have to stay out of the way of this work, so we're going to provide the instructional material they need," Schuster said.

The board also had two other options that could have been implemented if chosen. One was that HMS would be closed for the remainder of the week, and if the ductwork cleaning was not completed by Sunday, then a split schedule would be implemented with CHMS starting Monday.

The other option was to continue to cancel classes until HMS reopened with an extended school year.

No matter what option the board approved Tuesday, HMS students and staff will have to make up missed days. The HMS students and staff can make up days during days coded as "Not in Attendance" and by utilizing "Emergency Days."

Schuster said the latest report she received from cleaning crews indicated they were running a day ahead of schedule, so there was optimism from the district. In the meantime, administrators and board members want to make the transition as easy as possible on teachers, students and staff, and look forward to HMS reopening.

"Hopefully we can all rally together and support the teachers and students," Vorobiev said.