Oswego School District Board invites ideas, comments and concerns at public forum Monday

The Oswego School District 308 Board of Education is set to host a public forum and vote on the third phase of the district’s hybrid learning plan at its March 1 meeting.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the Oswego East High School Performing Arts Center, 1525 Harvey Road, Oswego.

Attendees will be required to wear a face covering while in the building, and will be seated to allow for social distancing. There will be a maximum capacity of 50 individuals allowed in the space.

Due to capacity limits, comments and questions can be submitted by email ahead of the event to be read that evening. Email comments must be sent to ustuder@sd308.org by 3 p.m., March 1. Emails should indicate if the submission is intended to be read as a public comment, or included in the Question and Answer portion of the forum, as well as if the email is intended to be directed to a certain member of the board.

“Anyone interested in sharing ideas, comments and concerns with the Board of Education is invited to the public forum,” a statement from the district read. “This is an opportunity for parents, community members and business leaders to engage with the board.”

The forum will be live streamed that night through the district website, www.sd308.org.

Many of the district’s more than 17,000 students have been engaged in hybrid learning since January 2021, and the district is currently in its second phase of the program. The third phase, expected to be voted on by the board at the March 1 meeting, will take effect April 7.

Associate Superintendent for Educational Services Faith Dahlquist presented the district’s recommendation for Phase 3 to the board at its Feb. 21 meeting.

Dahlquist told the board the district’s priorities for learning options remains to minimize health risks for all students and staff, maximize the time for in-person instruction, enable families to have some choice in addressing their students’ needs, minimize disruption to current teacher/student relationships and to maintain students’ ability to continue in their current courses.

Dahlquist provided a breakdown that showed that in the current phase, 66% of elementary students, 61% of junior high students and 55% of high school students are currently involved in hybrid learning.

Under the proposed plans, high school students in the current Group A would attend Mondays and Tuesdays for a full attendance day from 7:20 a.m. until 2 p.m., with remote learning on Wednesdays, while students in Group B would attend for a full attendance day on Thursdays and Fridays, and take remote learning on Wednesdays.

Students in both groups would eat lunch at school.

Junior high school students in Group A would attend Mondays and Tuesdays in-person for a full day of attendance from 8:05 a.m. until 3:05 p.m., and would take remote learning on Wednesdays following the second phase schedule. Students in Group B would follow a similar schedule, but attend in-person on Thursdays and Fridays.

As in high school, students in both junior high groups would eat lunch at school.

With each plan, students in remote learning would follow the schedules of in-person students.

Special Education students in the STARS program, LSP, select students in the DHH program, ISP students, and junior high SKILLS students will remain in-person for four days a week, and will see their schedules expand to match the day of junior high and high school students under the proposed changes.

All resource students, co-taught students, students with 504 and IEP plans, and high school SKILLS students would be in-person for two days a week, and would follow the starting and ending times for junior high and high school students.

No change was suggested to the current elementary school schedule.

Special Education, resource and 504 students in elementary school would not change plans either.

Two plans administrators did not bring to the board included offering remote by choice learning through livestreaming at the same time as in-person learning and switching some teachers to only teaching remote students or only teaching in-person students.

These plans were not recommended, Dahlquist said, because the district “feels strongly” that teaching elementary students in in-person and remote at the same time “is not in the best interest of developing early literacy and early numeracy skills for either set of students.”

“Our teachers are great, they’re trying so hard, but to simultaneously manage a class of young students and teach them, we think is an unreasonable burden,” she said.

Separating students into groups taught exclusively in remote learning or in-person learning would result in needing to move 440 students to different teachers leading to the hiring of five additional teachers creating 18 classes with more than 20 students - just for first grade.

No changes were recommended for early childhood students.

Once the plans are approved at the March 1, meeting, communication would be sent to teachers by March 3 and parents by March 4. Parents who may wish to switch their student from in-person to remote learning, or from remote to in-person would be asked to submit their choice no later than March 10.

During the March 1 meeting, the board will also host a public forum for community members and other stakeholders.