Board is out of touch

I reside in school district D214 and created the "Reopen D214" group back in August when the district decided to keep the schools closed. Our group had 1,300-plus members and we are advocating for D214 to open the schools per the "Fully Flexible Learning Plan," which was presented to district families in July.

This plan allows for the schools to be open five days a week, while maintaining capacity limits, social distancing, masks, and provides a fully remote option for those students who want it.

School board members, Messrs. Petro and Dussling, have portrayed our group as wanting the schools open without "restriction." Nothing could be further from the truth.

District 214 recently moved into a phase where students will be in the schools periodically. With this plan, students will be in school a total of 14 days for all of Semester 1. This is not an acceptable solution nor even a reasonable step forward.

Reports from the students that have been back in school have described a terrible experience. In many cases, they don't have their teacher in the classroom. Rather, the student is virtually connecting with the teacher who is located elsewhere. As many students and parents feel: Why bother?

It is also imperative for the public to know that the D214 superintendent, David Schuler, is the CEO of a company called Transeo which provides educational software to schools. Looking at Transeo's sales-pitch webinar schedule, it is clear that Mr. Schuler is spending quite a bit of time during school hours working on his second job - all while we are in a state of emergency. How is this acceptable?

The fact that our school board allows and encourages this behavior is another indication of how grossly out of touch they are.

Laura Schillmoeller

Rolling Meadows