DePue ready to bring kids back to school

DEPUE – DePue schools were set to bring its kids back to school for the first time this school year Monday with a blended learning platform. Mother Nature had other ideas.

Because of the timing of the winter storm that hit northern Illinois Monday, DePue District #103 opted to continue with its remote learning platform two more days, Monday and Tuesday. DePue Superintendent Brad Kenser anticipates that DePue will begin its blended learning platform on Wednesday.

“As always, if it’s not one thing, it’s another, as they say,” Kenser said of Monday’s snow storm. “I’ve talked to our maintenance director and looks like we won’t have too much snow and any issues that would keep us out. So, we’re going to attempt to try this [Wednesday]. We just didn’t feel like we wanted to put all these procedures in place and have to try to deal with it in inclement weather on the first day back.”

The schedule for Wednesday will still be for the “orange” cohort of students, and Thursday and Friday will be “blue.”

As DePue approaches its 100th Day of School celebration, Kenser said there has been mixed feelings as they prepare to bring kids back for the first time since last mid-March when the pandemic struck and lockdowns were put in place.

“Like everybody that’s dealing with the pandemic in any way, there’s people that are excited about the aspect of coming back and some kind of normalcy. And there’s still people who are concerned with the health and safety and have those concerns, too,” he said.

Kenser said about half of DePue’s 340 K-12 students will do the blended in-person learning, coming every other day in cohorts, while the other half has opted to stay remote.

“We have them set up in cohorts, so they will come a couple days of week. The remote students will utilize the synchronized learning along with those students who are in person,” Kenser said.

“It’s quite a task really, I think, in terms of preparation for the teaching staff. But they’ve been very good doing what they can to prepare for this and make sure the students are given the best opportunity educationally that they can get still with concerns and safety issues that arise just from never having gone through this before.”

Kenser said the students who are probably most excited to get back to school are their athletes. He also understands the social aspect of getting kids back to school.

“Especially your kids, doesn’t matter what level they’re in, they want to be around their friends,” he said. “School’s a very social time for them. So they’re a lot of them that are excited to get back to see their teachers face to face and not through a computer screen and see their friends. We do have the kids who are excited to have that opportunity to do that in person.”

With Region 2 moving into Phase 4 of COVID-19 mitigations, Kenser is awaiting Wednesday’s highly anticipated IHSA meeting in which IHSA members will learn more about the prospects and seasons for the remainder of the school year.

“I’m hesitant to try to forecast, because any time you do, the next day something comes out and it’s different,” he said. “I would say as quickly as safe and possible we will try to resume our athletic schedules as we can.”