Dear Parents/Guardians,

It’s hard to believe the third week of school is in the books!

When visiting schools, students look genuinely happy to be back in school. I hope they come home excited about what they are learning and about being back in school.

We are excited to begin Junior High sports this week with boys’ soccer and girls’ basketball tryouts. These two sports, along with cross country, will begin practices next week on September 7.

Thank you for your help as we continue to navigate some COVID-related challenges. It takes our whole school community, our families, and our staff to make in-person learning both safe and engaging so I can’t thank you all enough for your cooperation and continued support so far this school year.

Beyond Just Boundaries Overview

As you know, District 15 has developed a comprehensive proposal to address long-standing educational and facility needs, outdated boundary lines, and capacity issues while also bringing needed updates to curricular offerings, programs, and services to benefit our wonderful and uniquely diverse student body.

We believe that this work is critical to continuously improve the entire school system, to provide equity and programmatic enhancements for all students, and to maximize our resources. Once these needs are addressed, D15 will be positioned to better meet the needs of students now and well into the future. Learn more here.

I have formed a Citizen Task Force that will conduct its first meeting on September 23, 2021. This representative group of community members will be charged with vetting the Beyond Just Boundaries plan that was presented to the Board of Education at our Committee of the Whole meeting held on April 21, 2021, and helping our District determine what to share and ultimately test Districtwide.

Enjoy the long weekend.

Your Partner in Education,

Laurie Heinz

At this upcoming week’s Board meeting on September 8, we will be sharing a presentation with the Board regarding where we are in the Beyond Just Boundaries process and what our next steps will be. We hope you are able to join us or tune in via our livestream to Youtube.

The 2021-22 Parent/Student Handbook is now available online! You can view it here.

The annual handbook is a summary of Board of Education policies governing District 15. The complete School District 15 Board of Education Policy Manual is available for public review at the District office and on the District 15 BoardDocs website. State and federal laws require school districts to notify parents and students about certain rights, responsibilities, and procedures; you will find that information in this handbook. This handbook may be amended during the year.

The handbook offers information pertinent to the District as a whole. Some programs and procedures may differ from school to school, based on the size and location of the building, the grades served, the facilities available, and the programs conducted at the school. Your school administrators will inform you of these additional procedures. The handbook is intended to be a handy resource, but is not meant to take the place of personal communication between home and school. Please feel free to call your child’s school if you have any questions on programs or procedures, or consult your school’s website.

District 15 is strongly committed to school safety. Each year, schools are required by Illinois School Code to conduct the following drills:

• Three evacuation drills. One of the three evacuation drills must be supervised by the fire department.

• One bus evacuation drill.

• One severe weather/shelter-in-place drill.

• Two law enforcement (lockdown) drills. One of these two law enforcement drills must be a staff-initiated lock-down. The schools also conduct an annual drill review meeting with principals and representatives from police and fire departments to continuously improve each school’s readiness to respond to an emergency and/or crisis situation.

Newly authorized House Bill 2400 (The School Safety Drill Act) states:

• All lockdown drills will be announced to all school personnel and students prior to the commencement of the drill.

• Schools will provide sufficient information and notification to parents and guardians in advance of any lockdown drill that involves the participation of students.

• Schools will provide parents and guardians an opportunity to exempt their child for any reason from participating in the walk-through lockdown drill.

• Schools will provide alternative safety education and instruction related to an active threat or active shooter event to students who do not participate in a walk-through lockdown drill to provide them with essential information, training, and instruction through less sensorial safety training methods.

Building administrators will notify families of upcoming drills at least one week in advance of the drill. If you prefer your child does NOT participate in the yearly required lockdown drills, please complete this form. Please submit one form for each of your children you are opting out.

To all families that ride our buses -- thank you for your patience and understanding as we work out the kinks that every new school year brings.

This year, the ISBE and IDPH removed the capacity limits on school buses which enabled us to provide transportation to all 11,000 students we welcomed back for in person learning. In school, we are able to maintain the recommended 3-feet of physical distance between students. However, with the increased capacity allowed on buses and almost all of our students returning to school this year, we simply are not able to maintain 3 feet of distance between students on the bus. This means that when a student is positive for COVID-19, unvaccinated students on the bus are more likely to be deemed close contacts and will be required to quarantine.

As a reminder if you haven’t already done so and you are able to drive your child(ren) or allow them to walk to school, please consider doing so, this will allow for greater distance between riders on our buses. If you are able to opt out of transportation for the 2021-22 school year, please click here.

5th Grade & 6th Grade Instrumental Music is ready to start! This year we are pleased to offer instrumental music to all 5th and 6th grade students! Click here for more information and to sign up!

Come out and meet our human resources team at a Career Fair on Tuesday, September 21, 2021 from 12-3 pm at the Palatine Library. For a list of our open positions and to apply, please visit www.ccsd15.net/hiring.

• September 6 - No School (Labor Day)

• September 8 - Board of Education meeting

• September 22 - Board of Education Committee of the Whole meeting

• September 23 - Citizen Task Force meeting