Cross Lutheran School staff, students adjust to COVID-19 guidelines for in-person learning

New COVID-19 guidelines have made things look a little different for the teachers and staff at Yorkville Cross Lutheran School. Most staff have taken on some level of additional responsibility with extra duties added to their plates in order to make the school’s Crusade Thru Covid, the return-to-school plan, a reality.

Each morning at Cross, Principal Paul Goffron and several staff members can be found out front greeting the students and assisting with temperature readings. They always have a smile on their faces while doing this, and you can see how important each student and family are to the school.

Goffron also can be found teaching seventh and eighth grade Spanish this school year, which is not new to him. While at Walter Christian Academy, he taught freshman Spanish for a number of years.

Goffron and the Cross staff have worked hard to make it possible for the students to return to in-person learning for the 2020-21 school year. An outdoor classroom was built, different areas of the building were transformed into learning spaces, additional staff was hired and virtual classrooms were established.

Goffron is in the start of his second school year with Cross Lutheran School. He started in June 2019 when longtime Principal Sue Lopez retired. He came to Cross from Walther Christian Academy in Melrose Park.

Goffron had been at Walter Christian Academy for seven years and held many different administrative positions. The last three years at the school before coming to Cross Lutheran Schools, he was the principal for the middle school and high school.

He is a graduate of Valparaiso University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and a minor in Spanish. One month after graduation, he began Valparaiso University’s LEAPs graduate program, where he earned a Master’s degree in education and an initial teaching license. He went on to earn his Master of School Leadership at Concordia University Chicago in 2012.

Goffron has been teaching and serving in Lutheran education for 15 years.

Cross currently offers three learning models: in-person, five days a week, blended learning, and full e-learning. Guidelines from the Illinois Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are implemented and outdoor classrooms are used. Cross, as a private school, gets very little state or federal funding. However, through the generous efforts of volunteers and other Cross supporters, it was able to accomplish its goal of opening the school doors, safely, on Sept. 1.

“We will rely on our Heavenly Father for the necessary strength and discernment in these uncertain times, and we will ultimately continue to trust in Him,” Goffron said in a statement.

For information about Cross Lutheran, call the office at 630-553-7861 or go to his cross.org. Cross Lutheran is at Route 47 and Ament Road in Yorkville.