Opening week goes smoothly; 50 students start year in quarantine

Du Quoin Unit District 300 welcomed back around 1,400 students this week, minus 50 students who are starting the year in quarantine.

According to officials, six of them are COVID-19 positive, while the others have had close contact with a COVID-positive person, including people in their home.

District 300 Superintendent Matt Hickam said having 50 quarantined kids at one time is not the most the district has seen, as there were peaks of COVID-19 infection in the 2020 school year that were higher. However, it is more than the number of kids who were quarantined at the start of 2020, and Hickam said the Perry County Health Department has told him the county hasn't reached its COVID-19 peak yet.

The health department reported 22 new cases on Wednesday for a total of 222 current cases.

Hickam said they are seeing more kids getting sick; last year there were ample families where the adults contracted the virus but the children did not. This year, more kids are being caught up, which is in line with what the CDC is saying about young people being more susceptible to the Delta variant than last year.

Still, Hickam said the first couple days of school went smoothly. Students came to school masked up and ready to learn, he said, and many high school students arrived so early, that they were admitted into the cafeteria to wait.

"It's gone really well," Hickam said. "Of course, there is always some logistical thing."

This year's logistical thing was a new class of kindergartners who didn't know what to do in the lunch line, coupled with first graders who didn't know either, since normal lunchtime was canceled in 2020.

"Yesterday was a challenge at lunchtime in the elementary school," Hickam said Wednesday, adding it got straightened out quickly.

A challenge in all three schools was observing social distancing in the cafeterias, but Hickam said by Wednesday they had set up more tables and were able to spread the students out more.

"There's not as much floor space, as we're putting fewer kids at a table," he said. At DHS there are only half of the regular number of kids at each table.

He said there has been no issue with students and staffers having to mask up, as per state mandate.

District 300 is starting the year with no full-time remote learners, as that was not an options for families this year except if medical reasons dictated it.

The district will have remote learning for students who are sick with COVID or are on quarantine, but because there are no longer significant numbers of students doing remote learning the plans will be more individual.

"It will be a work in progress," Hickam said, "and will look different between grade levels and subject matter. We want to keep kids caught up. Teachers have a challenge, but I'm confident they'll meet it."

Hickam said District 300 is using part of its COVID-19 relief funds to employ a person at each school whose job will be to support remote learning. He said those people are already in place at the middle school and high school, and the search is on for someone at the elementary school.

The superintendent said he won't have complete enrollment numbers until next week, so he won't know until then how many families chose to do home schooling this year.

Last year, some Du Quoin families enrolled their children at St. Bruno's in Pinckneyville - which held in-person classes all year - and while Hickam said some of those families have returned to District 300, he won't have those numbers until next week, either.