St. Charles District 303 Pushes Back School Year’s Start

ST. CHARLES, IL — St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 is set to ease its students back into the classroom amid the coronavirus pandemic. The district has moved the start of the new school year back to Aug. 19, and schools are set to operate on shortened schedules for the first three days.

Most District 303 students will be dismissed at lunchtime and will be able to grab a meal to take home with them, Superintendent Jason Pearson and school board president Nicholas Manheim wrote in a message to families. Students will be assigned a remote-learning activity to complete each afternoon, they said.

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From Aug. 19-21, high school students who signed up for in-person learning in the fall semester will attend school from 7:20-11:20 a.m.; middle school students will be in classes from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; and elementary students will attend from 8 a.m. to noon. Kindergarteners will spend 95 minutes at school for the first three days, with students enrolled in "AM" classes attending from 8-9:25 a.m. and “PM” classes running from 10:25 a.m. to noon.

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Starting Aug. 24, schools will return to the full-day schedule included in the district’s reopening plan, officials said. The plan calls for high school and middle school students to attend class using a hybrid learning model.

The district’s hybrid model splits students who opted for in-person learning into two groups that will spend every other school day in the classroom. District 303 middle and high schools will operate on normal hours, starting Aug. 24, according to the reopening plan.

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Students in grades 1-5 will attend school from 8 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. each day, the plan says. Kindergarten and early childhood education will use half-day schedules for the entire 2020-21 school year.

Students will be required to wear masks and practice social distancing while inside facilities, and students and staff members must certify each morning that they are free of coronavirus-related symptoms before reaching school.

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In their letter to families, Pearson and Manheim warned the district could be forced to return to full-time remote learning if coronavirus cases continue to climb.

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