LaGrange Highlands School District 106

Hello Highlands Parents,

Our goal is to continue to provide the best learning in the safest environment possible. Our partnership with all District 106 families is key as we move forward to full day, in-school learning on March 15. 

We want to take this opportunity to update you on the current recommendations regarding travel quarantines. Many of the guidelines from the CDC and IDPH have evolved, and we know this subject is the topic of many questions to our nurses and principals.  

                                     Updated D106 Travel Quarantine Guidelines

Travel Outside of the United States

Upon return from student/family travel outside of the U. S., students must:

• Get tested 3-5 days after their return home AND quarantine at home for 7 days. A full 7 day quarantine period is required even with a negative test result.  
• If you choose not to have your students tested, they are required to stay home and quarantine for 10 days after your return. 

Travel Outside of Illinois but within the United States

When traveling outside Illinois, but within the United States, the District recommends that families follow all IDPH travel guidelines to minimize the risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19.  These guidelines can be found at:

 https://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19/travel-safety-guidance.

• If you follow the IDPH safe travel guidelines AND participate in the District 106 saliva screening program, your student(s) may return to school post-travel without quarantining. If you have not already signed the waiver to participate in the screening you may do so at any time by clicking here.
• If you elect NOT to follow IDPH safe travel guidelines OR participate in the District’s salvia screening program, before your student(s) may return to school, they must:

1. Quarantine AND get a PCR test 3-5 days after return from travel. Your student(s) may return to school only after providing the school with evidence of a negative PCR result administered in the appropriate time frame.
2. If you choose not to have your student tested, they must quarantine for 10 days after travel and may only return if they have no COVID symptoms.  

The travel quarantine is one of many mitigations used at District 106. While these may appear burdensome to some, we do ask each of you to consider not how this affects just your family, but the entire district. Let’s continue our work together to keep everyone in the Highland’s community safe.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact Karen Lippold, Middle School Nurse, Jeannette Geskie, Elementary School Nurse, Ms. Magruder, Elementary School Principal, or Mr. Papierski, Middle School Principal. 

We’ve had a lot of great news to share recently, including our announcement earlier this week to move forward with the return to a full day of in-person learning on March 15.  This move does have hurdles to clear, but we are confident that we will not “trip” on any of them.  We have, and will continue to work collaboratively with teacher leadership as we move forward with our plans for March 15.

To keep you fully informed,  each week we will provide you with an update on our progress as we get closer to the return date.

Where we are as of February 19:

• March 1 all ES hybrid students will return to five days of in-person learning.
• March 11 is now scheduled as a remote planning day for staff.  No student attendance.
• March 12 is now the end of the second trimester. March 15 is the start of the third trimester.
• District 106 currently has over fifteen(15) mitigation procedures in place, and only one that may require a modification: the distance between students in some classrooms may be less than six feet.  More details will follow as planning is completed.
• The District 106 schedule starting March 15 will include lunch. Student lunch will take place in the MS lunchroom the ES Multi-Purpose Room and the ES Gym.  Lunch will include an outdoor recess time(weather permitting).  Lunch periods will be classroom cohort specific.   More details about lunch will be provided in the coming days.  
• Students most likely will travel to most special subject classes.  Details are still being finalized at this time.   

As we move forward, let’s all remember that our collective practice of mitigation strategies are critical to creating the healthy and safe environment that makes it possible for us to move forward with plans for full-day student attendance.  Thank you for your support. 

Here is information about our upcoming Kindergarten Registration:

Download Kindergarten Registration 2021/2022

Mark Friedman and Glenn Schlichting from BWP and Associates presented the District 106 Board of Education with the results from the recent community survey and the plan moving forward to hire a new superintendent at the February 16 board meeting. 

To view the board presentation, please click here.   To view the survey results, please click here.  

To view the Return to 5 Days presentation presented by Interim Superintendent Steve Griesbach, the Leadership Team, and Union President Christine Moretti at the February 16 board meeting, please click here.  

The Elementary School will move to 5 days of in-person learning (8:30-12:30) starting March 1.  ECE students will also return to 5 days of in-person learning on March 1st in accordance with their classroom placement.  On March 15, both the Middle School and the Elementary School, will extend the in-school learning day to 3:15 p.m. ECE will extend their learning day to the full 2.5 hours of the AM & PM sessions (8:30 - 11:00 and 12:00 - 2:30).  The option for Remote Learning will still be available. More details regarding the move to a full day of in-person learning will be coming March 1.

On February 16, 2021 the D106 Board of Education held it’s regularly scheduled meeting for the month of February. The board reviewed several topics including an update on the district’s return to more in-person instruction and the search for the new superintendent.

Interim Superintendent Steve Griesbach, the Leadership Team, and Union President Christine Moretti discussed the plan for the next four weeks and beyond regarding greater in-person learning for Highlands students. The Elementary School will move to 5 days of in-person learning (8:30-12:30) starting March 1.  ECE students will also return to 5 days of in-person learning on March 1st in accordance with their classroom placement.  On March 15, both the Middle School and the Elementary School, will extend the in-school learning day to 3:15 p.m. ECE will extend their learning day to the full 2.5 hours of the AM & PM sessions (8:30 - 11:00 and 12:00 - 2:30).  The option for Remote Learning will still be available. More details regarding the move to a full day of in-person learning will be coming March 1. You can view presentation here.

Mark Friedman and Glenn Schlichting from BWP and Associates presented the board with the results from the recent community survey and the plan moving forward to hire a new superintendent.  To view the presentation, please click here.   

If you missed the February board meeting, please click here. 

A Regular Meeting of the Board of Education will be held on Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in-person in the LaGrange Highlands Middle School Gymnasium, as well as simulcast on YouTube beginning at 7:00 due to the Covid-19 global pandemic and can be accessed at:  https://youtu.be/bqvkaIn5jE4

If you choose to attend the meeting, please keep in mind that in-person seating capacity will be limited to 50 individuals (including Board members, administration, and support staff).

The agenda for the meeting is available by going to Administration > Board of Education > Agenda

PARTICIPATION

Due to the recommended restrictions for in-person gatherings in Suburban Cook County, District 106 would like to provide our community with two ways to comment at the Tuesday, February 16, 2021 Regularly Scheduled Meeting of the Board of Education.

Option #1: Written Comment Form

Board members will read each submitted statement, however, these comments are not read aloud at the meeting.

• Please click here to access this form https://forms.gle/TfcKhWC7hsfFAfNXA

This form will stop accepting submissions at 4:00 pm on Tuesday, February 16, 2021 in order to allow sufficient time to process and submit them to the Board of Education.

Option #2: Speak at the meeting

Please arrive at the LaGrange Highlands Middle School Gymnasium and enter the requested information on the “Participation Sign In” form.

During the Communication, Visitor Comments, and Participation Agenda item, you will be called to the podium to make your statement. 

The Public Comment period will be limited to five minutes in order to allow for the rest of the agenda items to be discussed in a timely manner.

The superintendent has determined that the weather we are currently experiencing presents a risk to the safety of students and staff.

Please keep your children home from school tomorrow, February 16, for a full schedule of remote learning.

Please check Schoology and Seesaw for the latest details from teachers regarding what information each student will need to learn remotely. Please review this change with your child or children. We believe it is important to discuss how this remote learning is a continuation of what students have been doing this school year and that they will follow our regular agendas and schedules. Please make sure your school provided device is charged and ready for learning in the morning. Your child should have a place to work free of distractions during school hours.

The D106 Board Meeting on Tuesday, February 16 will still be held in-person in the LaGrange Highlands Middle School Gymnasium, as well as simulcast on YouTube beginning at 7:00 p.m.

LaGrange Highlands School District 106 announces that pre-school screening for children ages 3 to 5 will be held on an ongoing basis throughout the balance of the school year. Children must live within the boundaries of District 106 to participate. Screenings will be conducted on select Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:30 PM. Appointments are required.

Children will be screened in the areas of fine and gross motor development, vision, hearing, speech, and language. The purpose of the screening is to identify children who might need additional evaluation and to answer concerns parents may have about their child’s development.

Appointments can be made by sending an email to lhilbrich@district106.net and indicating a preferred screening day. Please include parent phone number, street address, and child’s name and date of birth. Sessions will be assigned and confirmed as requests are received. Screenings will be held at Highlands Elementary School, 5850 Laurel Avenue, LaGrange.

The Board of Education would like to invite you to participate in a D106 Community Focus Group on February 10, at 7 p.m.  To participate in the community focus group, which will focus on the search for a new superintendent, you must register anytime before the event begins at 7:00 P.M. by clicking this link. You will be asked for your first and last names and your email address.  You will get an automated email response from a zoom.us email account with the link to participate in the webinar.  Click the link a few minutes before the meeting begins to be admitted. 

We hope that you will participate in this focus group.  Your feedback is an important part of the process and we look forward to seeing you (virtually) on Wednesday night!

4th Graders followed the Engineering Design Process in STEAM class to build tall trees using collaboration, creative thinking and household materials.

Download Tree Examples

At the beginning of the 2021 calendar year, District 106 implemented a voluntary saliva screening option for in-person students and staff.  We are very pleased with the data, specific to 106 students, that the screening provides.  This additional mitigation step has proved invaluable in just four weeks of screenings.  The staff and students who were identified as “probable” all tested positive for Covid with subsequent PCR Testing.  They were asymptomatic. 

We understand that many parents have shared privacy concerns and we would like to address those concerns in this email to each of you. 

• The sole purpose of the screening is to detect “probable” COVID-19 cases before they become symptomatic.
• To date, we have had no false positives detected with all significant findings detected through saliva screening confirmed through PCR testing.
• The screenings do not provide any other information related to other illnesses.
• The screening is not a DNA test nor does it provide DNA information to any parties involved.
• The vials are removed from the manila envelopes that the samples are sent to school in before they are forwarded to the lab for testing.  Samples are identified by a barcode label only while in possession of the lab. The company has no personal information for any person participating.
• The Barcode to name link is restricted to the D106 school nurses and technology department and is protected by the district.
• Safeguard and District 106 do not use saliva samples for any purpose other than screening. All samples are disposed of on a weekly basis, minimally. Safeguard utilizes the same company (Stericycle) as used by Loyola and other research institutions in the Chicago area to remove similar medical waste.
• The practice of salvia screening does not stall considerations of further in person learning but rather supports our internal measures and strengthens our safety mitigations.

If you have questions or concerns about the screening, please reach out to our district nurses.  Additionally, if you are interested in the screening but have encountered a barrier to participation, please contact our nurses.  They are a great resource for any questions and problem solving needed regarding the screening process.