Rock Island Today

As schools across Illinois continue to adjust to COVID-19 concerns and restrictions while educating students, the response has been far from uniform.

Still, Annawan Community Unit School District No. 226 has successfully managed to conduct all instruction in-person this year and expects that to continue through the rest of the school year.

Matt Nordstrom, superintendent and high school principal of Annawan CUSD, recently told Rock Island Today that the most significant change they have made is releasing the students from class early every day.

“We wanted to start the year with the early release time and decided it has worked very well, so we are continuing it at least until Winter Break,” he told Rock Island Today.

While the district has plans to respond to any problems involving the novel coronavirus, Nordstrom said education leaders have not needed to use those methods yet.

“At Annawan, our district is still planning to remain in-person every day with our continued early dismissal,” he told Rock Island Today. “We feel very fortunate to have been in-person for the first quarter of the school year and we hope to continue to be able to do so through our second quarter.”

Part of being able to continue with in-person instruction five days a week has been taking additional precautions to ensure against any potential spread of COVID-19 in the district’s schools, Nordstrom told Rock Island Today.

“We developed the safest plan possible to allow us to still be in person every day,” he told Rock Island Today.

Early dismissal doesn’t only limit the time students and staff are together but also permits cleaning the entire building and every classroom, he told Rock Island Today. The early dismissal also gives teachers time to work more directly with students whose families have chosen virtual instruction.