Palatine mom decries delay in remote tutoring for quarantined District 211 students
A Palatine woman whose son and daughter at Fremd High School just tested positive for COVID-19 is upset that the remote learning that saw all students in Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 through many months of instruction last year is no longer available to her quarantined children.
After addressing the board of education Thursday night only hours after learning of both hard truths, Edan Gelt said other parents commented to her that she could have just kept her kids' test results to herself.
"If they don't have remote learning, parents are going to send their kids to school with COVID," Gelt said.
But after doing their best to apply themselves to remote learning while they weren't sick, Gelt's freshman daughter and junior son suddenly found themselves with no access to instruction once they were.
She said she expects one child to miss eight days of school and the other to miss 10 days. The teens were not vaccinated, Gelt said. She said she was vaccinated and had tested negative for COVID-19.
"My kids are playing PlayStation 4 now," she said Friday morning. "There's no school for them to attend. What upsets me is that the technology exists. ... (District 211 officials) need to course-correct as quickly as possible."
That's exactly what is happening, those officials say.
Beginning next week, and for the remainder of the school year, quarantine instruction coordinators at all five schools in the district will be arranging individualized after-school tutorial sessions via Zoom with either a student's classroom teacher or another person familiar with the subject matter.
With a typical student taking five to seven courses, these remote tutorial sessions are designed to last a minimum of half an hour per course every other day. Additional tutoring may also be deemed necessary to keep a student on track with his or her coursework.
Gelt said she had a productive conversation with Fremd Principal Mark Langer later on Friday about the still untested program.
"The idea sounds great," Gelt said. "I said let's give it a try."
But she still believes a remote connection to a daytime classroom would be superior. While Gelt said she understands last year's universal access to remote learning removed an incentive for students to go to class, she thinks it should remain an option for those who test positive for COVID-19.
"It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach," she said.
Gelt also wishes the tutoring program had been ready to go on the first day of school and suspects her reaching out to the board and the media is behind the speed of next week's implementation.
"They've had so long to prepare for this, and that's disappointing," she said.