Elgin Christian school reopens with most students attending in person

More than 200 students wearing masks and socially distancing from peers returned to classrooms Thursday for the first day of in-person instruction at Westminster Christian School in Elgin.

The private school off Highland Avenue is among the first in the suburbs to resume in-person classes while a majority of public schools have opted for remote learning.

"We are operating with a flexible hybrid model," said Erik Schwartz, high school principal.

The plan allows for synchronous remote learning for students whose parents aren't comfortable sending their children for in-person lessons because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Out of 260 students about 15 to 20 are learning remotely while their peers are in school. Remote students can observe everything going on in the classroom through Zoom videoconferencing. They will learn four days a week with the fifth day being set aside for connecting with teachers or for teacher prep work.

The remote learning schedule is more structured than in the spring with students attending all seven of their class periods on two days and fewer on the other two days, with independent work filling out the schedule.

"But we don't add more stressors or workload," Schwartz said. "We don't want them to be overloaded by having to do their full schedule every single day, but also allow them to do some work independently (and) not have to be on the computer eight hours a day."

Each in-person classroom will have between 15 and 20 students. Those attending in person also can flip to remote learning for health or other reasons without losing instructional time, Schwartz said.

Hybrid classes will continue until there is a treatment or a vaccine for COVID-19 or "until we get an all clear from the government," Schwartz said.

If the state rolls back to Phase 3 due to rising numbers of COVID-19 cases or the governor orders restricting school population, the school will prioritize and continue with in-person lessons for students in preschool through sixth grade.

"In-person learning is so critical for that age group," Schwartz said. "They just don't have the independence yet to really do remote learning well."

Middle school and high school students would then revert to remote learning so the younger students can be spread out more throughout the school building.

If the situation worsens, officials are prepared to go fully virtual for all students.

"If kids were in any way significantly endangered, it would be no question, we wouldn't be opening," Schwartz said. "We are going to meet all the requirements that the state dictates to us. There's no way to mitigate all risk but we are going to mitigate as much as we can to serve our families."