By HOI ABC

BLOOMINGTON – District 87 returned to a hybrid learning model on Tuesday. District Superintendent Dr. Barry Reilly said it is the first time students in grades 7-12 will be returning in person.

All students will be remote Mondays and then will have two different groups of in person learning. One group will be in-person Tuesdays and Wednesdays and the other will be Thursdays and Fridays.

Reilly told our news partner HOI ABC they have a little less than half participating in this model, as the rest will continue remote learning.

Going into the final leg of the school year, Reilly said they have made many adjustments to safely return to the classroom.

“We did have an opportunity to better plan, although I will tell you if we were to do this without a pandemic and we wanted to move to a remote environment, we’d probably do it over the course of two to four years,” said Reilly.

The main goal, Barry said, will be to keep students in school for the rest of the semester. He said his hopes are high with the roll-out of the vaccine, but he does not think we’re in a position where a vaccine is widely available for kids soon.

“I do think we’ll be in a much better place to get back to doing things, just like graduation, you know, things that are markers and kids back to being able to play sports,” said Reilly.

Although, Reilly said he would not be surprised if they returned next year still on a hybrid learning plan.

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