Sangamon Sun

Some teachers are not saying silent after the Tri-City School District in Buffalo became one of a handful of school districts taking an ‘adaptive pause’ for the remainder of the school year.

Officials at the Sangamon County-based school say the pause was triggered by the local health department as COVID-19 rates increased in the school district.

The pause includes no sports until students return in the second week of January.

Head basketball coach Steve Billy said he is disappointed in the newly enacted COVID-19 protocols and skeptical as to its intended effect. He said in his talks with teachers at other schools, there seems to be confusion everywhere about the protocols.

“Everyone seems to be going by a different manual. So there's just no consistency. I think that's frustrating for I think parents, students and teachers,” Billy told the Sangamon Sun.

Billy's comments came after the health department shut down the basketball season based on its tracking of COVID-19 data.  

"I'm tired of sitting by myself and just not saying anything," Billy said.

Many have been questioning such moves by other local health departments.

In some schools like Springman in North Cook County only the 8th grade was canceled.

In Oak Park, the Oak Park River Forest school district canceled extracurricular events such as sports and the school’s annual winter performance. That cancellation was reversed after only three days later when parents protested the closure of sporting events, asking how that single change could have the intended effect.

Billy also questioned the reasoning and the carryout of such cancellations.

“We talk about science. Well, there's science out there that says remote learning bad,” Billy said. “There’s there's science, there's there's kids' grades, and their academic performance goes downhill to me over a screen. You know, if I was a teenage boy and I had to get up on my own and get on the screen, I don't know how ... how would I have been at doing that.”

As part of his duties, Billy travels to other school districts in the area to provide assistance with special education.

In his travels Billy said he has found many teachers who said the online format in itself is a problem and that the student engagement is not what it should be in the online setting.

Statewide declines in student achievement over the lifetime of the pandemic would appear to back up Billy’s findings.

Billy said the way that COVID-19 is being handled at this point in the history of the pandemic does not make sense to him, and added that there are many more community members upset by the decision to make the “adaptive pause” than those who are accepting of yet another change in their child’s school habits.  

Billy said the conditions handed down from Springfield to school districts like his are like the rules of a “sick game.”

“This is like almost a political thing or a political game of some kind or bureaucratic game, and our kids are pawns in the game,” he said.

Billy said he feels for the students.

“I see 3-year olds wearing masks walking down the hall,” he said. “Our pre-K, our kindergartners, our first graders -- they don't know any different. This is what school is. School is wearing a mask -- that's what it is. They have no other view of school.

“We got, we got high school kids that they've dealt with this entire high school career. This whole pandemic thing, this is what their high school has been like. Sports seasons cut short, no concerts, separated at lunch, not seeing faces, not seeing expressions, it's just, it's, it's rough.”

When Tri-City returns for the spring semester on Jan. 10, Billy said he is hopeful everything is back as close to pre-pandemic normality as possible.

“We’ve got to move on. We got to we got to start living our lives and move on,” Billy said.