'Our kids deserve normalcy' District 87 students, parents call for schools to reopen at rally

GLEN ELLYN – Collin Murphy said in a typical school year, when a student has trouble focusing it may be because they didn't sleep the night before. Or they skipped breakfast.

But that student can come back the next day to an environment ready to facilitate their focus.

"Not so with e-learning," said Murphy, a Glenbard South High School senior. "In e-learning the problems with focus are perpetual and irredeemable."

Murphy has had enough of learning in front of a computer, instead of the classroom. So have many students like him, and their parents.

On Monday more than 100 students and parents gathered in Glen Ellyn, outside the Glenbard Township High School District 87 offices, for a rally to call on the district to return to in-person learning. It was the second such rally in two weeks, held before Monday's school board meeting.

A crowd came together holding signs like "Classrooms Over Computers" and "Reopen Glenbard Schools" while chanting "Open Up."

"Keeping our students out of school is harming our students more than COVID itself," said Betsy Kateyeannis-Dale, whose son is in special education classes for a learning disability and a junior at Glenbard East. "A lot of students are having a lot of anxiety, developed depression and they feel isolated."

District 87, like many suburban districts, began the school year in remote learning, citing the rising number of COVID-19 cases as its reason for postponing the start of in-person learning in a hybrid model. Since then, though, districts in Elmhurst, Wheaton and Downers Grove have either begun to reopen, or announced plans to reopen in October.

District 87 has said it will continually monitor COVID-19 rates and metrics provided by the state and county health departments to determine when its in-person hybrid model can begin. The next review is scheduled for Oct. 13.

Kateyeannis-Dale called on Superintendent David Larson and school board President Judith Weinstock to resign if schools are not reopened in two weeks.

"Why is the goal posts being moved all the time? Enough is enough. It is time to get back to our lives, especially our students," said Kateyeannis-Dale, citing statistics that the recovery rate from COVID-19 for children ages 0-19 is 99.99%. "It's not because of COVID that D87 is keeping kids out of school. If that is the case, York High School would not be reopening. York has 2,800 students. How come they have figured it out. Why can't D87 figure it out? Our kids deserve and need a real education, and our kids deserve normalcy. This is not normal."

Peter Breen, a Republican candidate for state representative in the 48th District, said he is frustrated when he sees all of the parochial schools, half the schools in Illinois and schools in all the neighboring states back in school.

"It's time for our kids to get back to school," Breen said.

Breen, who served two terms in the state legislature, said on no topic does he hear more intense passion than on the issue of students returning to school. He's heard from a mom who's an emergency room nurse who works the overnight shift while raising four children.

"She's like, 'What am I supposed to do with all the e-learning? You just can't survive,'" Breen said. "She's on the front lines and we have failed her. We have failed her family in the same way we have failed our students."

Paul Vallas, Chicago Public Schools CEO under former Mayor Richard M. Daley, claimed that the science surrounding COVID-19 simply does not support keeping schools closed.

"I'm not being naive, but the data points out that [COVID-19] has a minimal, infinitesimal impact on young people," Vallas said. "Young people are not likely to be as contagious in spreading the virus. That's just a fact."

Vallas, though, said the "destructive impact" this is happening on young people cannot underestimated.

"You cannot imagine," Vallas said. "You think 'Well, what is one year?' For a child one year is a lifetime. The inability to socially interact is extremely damaging."

Murphy sees friends from parochial schools like St. Francis and St. Ignatius high schools able to interact with teachers in a controlled learning environment, and wonders why that can't be him.

"I envy my friends who attend these schools because they are receiving a far better education than myself," Murphy said. "And no amount of schedule modifications can possibly remedy this."