Dear Parents/Guardians/Students:
This was a big week for the State of Illinois’ Public Schools. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), along with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), released its transition guidance for re-opening schools this fall. Here is the link if you would like to read the entire document: www.isbe.net/Documents/Part-3-Transition-Planning-Phase-4. You should feel confident that, for the last few days, the Reavis Administrative Team has been pouring over these pages, in addition to the results of our stakeholder survey.
The Administration will continue to participate in ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders regarding summer and fall academic plans. The Re-Opening of Reavis Task Force has met to discuss the district’s proposed plans, which include summer school programs as part of the CARES ACT Grant. Please visit our district website (reavisd220.org) to access the Comprehensive Reopening & Transition Plan documents located on our homepage.
Here is the GOOD NEWS! We have been approved by the state to move forward with our comprehensive summer school transition plan that will be funded by Title I and the ESSER Grant (CARES ACT). At this time, these are the only programs that are encouraged in the state guidance for this summer. Therefore, we are cancelling our second session of regular summer school. The four approved grant funded programs are for targeted interventions and students eligible based on program requirements. These students have already been contacted and are encouraged to register as soon as possible so we can appropriately staff these courses. We will continue to expand our credit recovery programs into the fall.
We recently sent a survey to parents and students about our district’s e-Learning & communication efforts from March 13th through May 22nd. The survey also contained two questions related to the re-opening of Reavis. We appreciate the responses we received, and we shared that initial feedback with our administrative team & Board of Education. Now that we have received the state guidance for reopening schools this summer and fall, we feel it is extremely important to send another survey to parents specific to our ideas and models for reopening Reavis. Please be on the lookout for this survey in the next two weeks. We will continue to collaborate with stakeholders and work toward a safe, appropriate, and compliant reopening based on the IDPH and ISBE guidelines for Stage Four.
Finally, I would like to express my full support for all of our students and families during these stressful and uncertain times in our nation. We here at Reavis are sincerely proud to serve the students of the Burbank and Stickney communities. Our student and parent voices will be paramount in our success moving forward. We will continue to provide a safe, inclusive, and student-centered environment in academics, activities, and athletics that prepares all of our students for life in an ever-changing, diverse, and global society. We appreciate your continued support through this very difficult and challenging time, and, as always, we will get through it together.
Sincerely,
Dr. Daniel J. Riordan
Superintendent
Reavis High School – D220
