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“In life, there is no such thing as impossible; it’s always possible.”– Venus Williams

Dear North Shore School District 112 Staff and Community,

As you may have heard or read, today Governor Pritzker announced that all schools in Illinois will remain closed, and he announced the suspension of in-person learning for the remainder of the school year. For us, that means that June 4, 2020, will reflect the end of the school year 2019-2020.

We recognize that this development will raise questions about the impact on students, staff, and families for the remainder of this school year with respect to learning, emotional concerns, end of year traditions, and more. We know this news is tough for many reasons. Let’s all reflect on our own personal health and our families. We will get through this difficult time together.

To date, we have served more than 7,000 breakfast and lunch meals, and we’ll continue to provide food distribution and work in conjunction with local social service agencies and the Township. Please use this opportunity to focus on staying safe and helping to slow the spread of the virus. We will complete this school year using our Remote Learning Plan.

As we review and process this new development, my team will work through necessary plans and responses to this new, unexpected reality. We are making plans for summer school options and we are exploring methods to assess learning including the learning loss as a result of the abrupt change from in-person schooling to remote learning. We are committed to supporting student learning. We’re monitoring attendance, schedules, learning, and impact as we “build this plane while flying.”

Dr. Ryan will have an update on e-Learning at next week’s Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, April 21, at 7:00 p.m. held remotely. We encourage you to take advantage of the learning resources shared by your teachers, the principals, those provided by Educere and other digital sources as we work through this new and transitional approach to running schools. We want to thank our teachers and support staff for their flexibility, resiliency, and creativity. We are working with our teachers on ways to improve e-Learning daily and weekly.

We are also consulting with local districts as well as with national partners on how to maximize learning and instruction using e-Learning for 4,000 students in grades PK-8.

As a reminder, we’ve been focused on the following four priorities in this evolving pandemic crisis:

  • Priority one – feed our families and children
  • Priority two – account for the extended safety, health, and welfare of our 4500 students and staff
  • Priority three – communicate clearly
  • Priority four – e-Learning

We are confident that our prioritization of physical and mental health first and foremost before other considerations is the right way for us to lead through this crisis. Since we are all experiencing this together I want to thank you for compassion and grace as we, like the rest of our nation, deal with this complete and total change in education.

We will be using a survey (or series of surveys) very soon to get your input to inform our new “rest of the year” planning. We thank you in advance for completing any requests for input. Our partnership has never been more important than it is right now. We are proud of our transformation, and we are grateful to each and every one of you for your dedication to education and public health.

Please stay safe & healthy.

Sincerely,

Mike|

Michael Lubelfeld, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools