Superintendent of D112, Mike Lubelfeld brought the Club up to date on the status of remote, hybrid and in-person learning for Highland Park and Highwood public schools. He first thanked the Club for our response to the need of so many of our students. Almost 1 in 4 HP/HW students is food insecure. The state has nearly 2 million students and 48.5% of them qualify as living in poverty. So much more is needed to help with hunger. Mike said he's never seen such a large need as it is right now. With our purchase of $15,000 of Sunset Foods gift cards, we were able to help 150 families! This pandemic brought not only an educational challenge to school districts everywhere, but a public health challenge as well. The district spent nearly one million dollars on air quality enhancement for the schools in preparation for the students' return. In addressing some of the things the district did to get the kids back on track with their learning, Mike said they got some things right, they did others not quite right. Citing better technical devices and hot spots that needed to be purchased to assist the kids was one example. The cheaper devices didn't hold up. They spent $3.5M shoring up their technical devices to students. He reported the district has been assessing students all year long. In reading, most have not lagged behind, but those disadvantaged students have a bigger gap. That is why there will be tutoring programs this summer. More review is needed in mathematics to catch any lags. Mike said some students weren't able to attend their virtual classes because their parents left for work and the older ones were expected to help the younger ones with their classes. When children return to school, masks will still be required. In alignment with the state's health guidelines, the six foot distance rule will go to three feet except at lunch time, when it will return to six feet. All D112 employees are fully vaccinated. In April, the district will have in-person learning, with 90% of their students in the classroom, and 10% staying remote. Most of those are medically fragile. When it comes to the physical buildings, Mike had this to report: Northwood Junior High's renovations are complete - on time and under budget. Classrooms are now flexible, according to what space may be needed at any given time. Solar panels were installed and Mike was proud to say they were able to save a heritage tree - a 250 year old swamp white oak tree. The same attention will be shown for the reliefs and murals at other schools when the time comes. It was determined that Lincoln School will be demolished. It would need more than $4M to bring up to date and it would not be cost effective. If trying to prepare and plan for the education of students during a pandemic were a big enough challenge, Mike co-wrote (with Nick Polyak and PJ Caposy) a new book, "The Unfinished Leader: A School Leadership Framework for Growth and Development" which delves into how you should always be working toward the next "you". "Leadership isn't to be taken lightly," Mike said, "In times like these, you must pull yourself up by the boot straps, and keep moving forward." The book comes out next month. -mb |