Parent asks Princeton High School Board to allow full-time learning, spectators at activities

PRINCETON – Wednesday’s school board meeting at Princeton High School started and ended with a discussion, started by a community member.

Jaime Patterson, a mother of two PHS sophomores, spoke to the board with two requests. She asked the board to consider allowing students to attend school five days a week and to allow spectators at PHS home events under the COVID-19 guidelines allowed by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Patterson, also a teacher at Lincoln Elementary School in Princeton, said Lincoln has had in-person learning five days a week since August and that it has worked out. She said the positivity rate for COVID-19 is the lowest it’s been since the pandemic began. She said students are going on a full year without full-time in-person learning and argued it is in students’ best interests to be in school five days a week if they desire.

She pointed out that the IDPH allows 50 spectators at activities as long as they are 12 feet from the playing area and are socially distanced. She believes PHS is counting the pep band, cheerleaders and poms as spectators, although IDPH guidelines do not count them as spectators.

Patterson said Prouty Gym is well sufficient for PHS to allow spectators and that other schools are allowing spectators.

Patterson also spoke on behalf of Patricia Lanham, a mother of two PHS basketball players, who also requested that the board allow spectators. She said her mother has brain cancer and would like to see her grandsons play while she can.

The board discussed Patterson’s concerns at the end of the meeting, although they were unable to take any action on them at this time.

Superintendent Kirk Haring said PHS went to the hybrid plan this year, which has students attending school every other day, because “we measured all our classrooms, we knew how many desks we could put in there, we knew how many students we could put in there. At 6 feet, we couldn’t accommodate 500-plus students.

“Andy [PHS principal Berlinski] and I have talked about seeing where we are at the start of the fourth quarter and seeing if it would be possible to bring more students back. We don’t know now because we don’t know what those numbers would be. We would probably be around 200 full-time remote.”

Haring said there are differences in guidelines between the IDPH and the Illinois State Board of Education, and the ISBE is the covering body for state schools.

“We started with 6-feet spacing, and then it was 6 feet when possible. The question becomes, ‘Are you OK with [6 feet] when possible?’” Haring said.

“Can we put X number of students 6 feet apart? We have one class that we can’t, and that’s choir. The maximum we can put in a space is 50. There’s 100-plus kids in choir. We were really lucky. We were just under the 50 in both our blue day and our gray day.”

Haring said PHS will continue to monitor the situation and may send a survey to parents similar to in fall. The survey would ask how many would like to send their students full time and if they are comfortable with maintaining 6 feet of distance “when possible,” or, as the ISBE says, 6 feet always.

Principal’s report

Berlinski, speaking remotely, said PHS projects to gain 11 students in its blended learning for the fourth quarter, which will start March 16. With an enrollment of 531 students, there will be 200 fully remote students (37%) and 261 blended students (49%) while the number of full-time in-person students remains at 70 (13%).

Berlinski noted that the Return-to-Learn Plan for the fourth quarter is a continuation of the plan that has been used for the first three quarters.

Also, Berlinski said parent-teacher conferences will be held virtually or by phone call on Thursday and Friday and that the guidance counselors are finishing the registration process.

Personnel

Head coaches Andy Puck (volleyball), Ryan Pearson (football) and David Gray (boys soccer) and their assistants were approved for the modified IHSA spring season.

Students of the month

Six students were recognized as the March Students of the Month. They are listed with the teacher who nominated them: senior Emma Zelenik (Pat Marquis), juniors Taylor Wetsel (Ryan Pearson), McKenzie Hecht (Eric Tinley), Rachelle Newberry (Joan Simpson), Anna Mallery-Sondergoth (Michael Fredericks) and sophomore Chris Kleckner (Dan Foes).

• The next PHS Board meeting is scheduled for March 24.