District 99 expects to conduct in-person summer school


The Community High School District 99 Board of Education is weighing plans to hold summer school in person.

Discussion of the recommendation came during a Jan. 11 workshop meeting.

Rob Lang, District 99′s assistant superintendent for staff services, said plans have not been cemented for this summer, but the default option is to implement an in-person learning model.

“We’re administratively talking through that what summer school could look like,” Lang said. “We’re going to run it in person unless there’s a reason why we can’t”

Lang said the district’s administration hasn’t decided if there will be a remote-only option.

The summer school program last year relied on remote instruction. It allowed students to have at least 90 minutes of synchronous instruction along with other activities four days per week.

Lang said this time last year, the district was working under the assumption that summer school would be held in person, but things didn’t go according to plan.

“As the pandemic evolved, it quickly became clear we had an online summer school,” he said.

Tim Tilton, a dean and the director of the summer school program for District 99, said the district had a successful summer school program last year despite the switch to remote learning that was prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This would not have been possible without the incredible flexibility and the hard work of so many of the other people throughout the district,” Tilton said. “Truly, this was a great team effort. We could not have done it without everyone working together.”

The summer school program featured three tracks: academic, drivers’ education and credit recovery.

There were 250 students participating in the academic track, which officials said nearly matches the enrollment figure of he prior year.

The district saw 32 students participate in credit recovery, and eight of them graduated who otherwise would not have, officials said. The drivers’ education program served 55 students last summer.