After just two days, a school district in the Quad Cities has had to throw in the towel, showing how difficult it may be for Illinois students to return to school.
Last week, the East Moline Grade School District held in-person classes, but on Monday decided to switch back to remote learning only. Superintendent Kristin Humphries says the Illinois Department of Public Health has very strict COVID-19 rules, and if a student or adult has even one symptom, they have to go home for up to two weeks.
"For example, somebody had a headache - that's on the exclusion list so they had to go home and anybody within six feet of them for at least 15 minutes had to go home as well. So we had to contact trace those out."
Monday was a remote learning day for the district, but 21 adults had to be excluded because they had a symptom, or had close contact with someone who did.
"I do know under these current guidelines it's difficult to keep enough individuals in our schools at least to be able to serve our students."
Doctor Humphries hopes local spread of COVID-19 slows down enough so that students can return to the East Moline schools in October, when the second quarter starts.
The district has about 2,800 students in pre-K through 8th grade.
