Find a Way. Be Better.
Lake Forest High School, Carmel Catholic and others embrace obstacles and lead by attempting to re-open school this year
A comment by a Lake Forest School District 115 Board of Education member Tuesday incapsulates the ground the school district continues to stake out as the school year approaches.
Regardless of how difficult this is we are doing the hard work now that all of the districts will have to do at some point
Bravo.
Find a way. Be better.
After hours of conversation and deliberation, the LFHS BOE passed by unanimous vote the administration’s hybrid re-opening plan. This comes on the heels of a July 27 vote rejecting initial plans for first semester remote learning.
The decision by the school board is the right one based on science and data. It’s also the right decision based on what’s best for kids. Teachers have every right to be concerned about safety. They also need to understand that concerns should be based on objective data, not dubious anecdotes. If not comfortable, opt out. The same with worried parents. We are in unchartered territory in regards to school openings and the virus. Schools opened in Indiana last week and positive tests followed.
Of course they did.
I hope district officials in Indiana and other states do not cave into mainstream media fear porn about the cases (The New York Times would have devoted less space to a Zombie invasion if it had occurred simultaneously in the same community). Follow protocols and guidelines, but keep the doors open. Even if they must be shut for a short time. Remain diligent and constructive, rather than reactionary and deconstructive.
Find a way. Be better.
Over several days last week, the state of Iowa held a high school baseball tournament. Over 29,000 fans attended the tournament at a field in Des Moines. Tournament organizers held the games with safety at the forefront—capping the number of fans in the stands. The event drew it’s largest crowd since 2014.
For most of you reading this, you probably had no idea.
That’s because destruction—whether it be of property, statutes, school closings—is the hustle being peddled by the overwhelming majority of mainstream media.
Construction—Iowa high school baseball, MLB continuing to play after positive tests, Lake Forest High School school re-opening—is not as widely reported. There is a willful bias towards the unraveling of things and will continue as we co-exist with the virus in the coming weeks, months and years.
I spend most of my social media time on Twitter. Mostly it is for professional reasons, to connect with sources, to push out content I find valuable. It can be fun to have playful threads with others on topics like sports and culture.
But the ‘fun’ part is harder to find. Grown men and women, who should know better, act with the emotional resilience of Yosemite Sam in a roomful of rabbits. Twitter rewards the perversely agitated, like an opiate to the bloodstream. Think of a crack house, junked-up needles littering the floor, replaced by #ShutItDown.
Many schools that re-open this month or in the fall may have to shut down temporarily. Some degree of messiness is inevitable. If there is one positive test at LFHS—student, teacher or staff member—it will be covered by MSM with the breathless intensity of a hurricane. But take counsel from other organizations and institutions stepping out first. Follow reactionary health and safety protocols, but trust the proactive imagination and resourcefulness of community stakeholders to make the initiative work over the long haul of a school year.
Other Chicagoland schools like Carmel Catholic, Loyola Academy, Regina Dominican and St. Viator are making plans for physical attendance. I hope they see a boost in enrollment as a result.
At Monday’s meeting, a LFHS BOE member made a comment about the decision to try and re-open school in September:
We don’t view this is a binary decision of ‘a’ or ‘b’. We believe there is an appropriate middle ground. This will be challenging and probably even disappointing in some ways. It will be different, but can still be good. Not perfect but worth the effort
Bravo.
By attempting to re-open, Lake Forest is sending a message we should lift up as a culture, not tear down.
Embrace the obstacle. Find a way.
Be Better.