At 6 p.m on March 18, the members of the District 158 Board of Education began their monthly meeting via Zoom. They sat down to talk publicly about whether there will be changes to the flow of the school day. 

The meeting began with Huntley High School’s principal Marcus Belin making a speech about how well the students are doing in the Hybrid model and the remote setting. They also started off doing student and teacher recognition. 

Thomas George, Huntley High School’s Speech Team adviser and teacher, brought three students along with him to the meeting. Those three students were recognized for their hard work put into the theater and speech programs.

Many schools in the state of Illinois still don’t have exploratory and elective classes, so the students made it possible for our district to still have them. Throughout the pandemic, the students who have Individual Education Plans have been falling behind, so the board has made a better plan throughout this school year to keep them on track. It was a success on the district’s part.

“The classes that have come out for the very first time this year during a remote setting have turned out to be very successful as well,” One board member said.

The SATs the seniors had taken back in September have shown a 5% score increase during this pandemic. For the remainder of the year, the Board has decided to continue the increase of in-person learning.

Summer learning will be open to all students and will hold one-on-one and small tutoring groups. Summer school for the elementary, middle, and high schools will have two full sessions. The sessions will be from June 7 to June 25. The second session will be from July 6 to July 26. It will be available for all students to join.

The board made several changes to hybrid learning. The space limits changed to 50 people. They also shifted the 6 feet social distancing requirement to be 3 feet. There will be no more than 50 people on a bus. Staff members must be at least 6 feet away from the students that are doing in-person learning.

There will now be space for hybrid middle and high school students to attend five days per week. They will have desks spaced four feet apart from one another. This will start on March 20. The district will then give students learning remotely the opportunity to change to the five-day hybrid model. 

The high school will have lunch periods in the cafeteria and the central gymnasium. If there is a positive case, we will have to space out to six feet again. The meeting then ended with the closing remarks. The next Board of Education meeting will be held on April 15 starting at 6 p.m.