After a Friday afternoon meeting with the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Director Julie Pryde, St. Joseph-Ogden District 305, which includes the high school, has decided to continue to offer in-person instruction to students on the hybrid model.
Thursday afternoon, CUPHD released a statement to Superintendents and held a press conference to recommend that schools return to remote learning as soon as possible through Jan. 5 in order to help curb a county-wide spike in COVID-19 cases.
After the Friday meeting where Pryde told Superintendents, “that it was our choice as to whether or not to stay open and that she was not mandating that we close at this time,” according to Brooks, SJ-O decided to stay with the current model unless the state mandates a change or the district has COVID-related issues within the building.
“We feel our students are very safe while at school in regards to COVID by being socially distanced in every classroom and masked 100-percent of the time,” Brooks said. “In addition to that, we have committed to try and provide every opportunity we can to our students that we are allowed to, and can do safely, during a time in which they have had so much taken away from them during this Pandemic.”
The District 305 Board will meet on Wednesday night.
Prairieview-Ogden Superintendent Jeff Isenhower told the News-Gazette Sunday that it will continue with accessing the situation day-by-day, watching the case numbers within the district and making sure there is enough staff to cover the duties of the school district.
