Illinois school districts cooperate to feed students during quarantine

With nearly a third of its faculty and staff quarantined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shawnee School District in Wolf Lake, Illinois, has been forced to move all student instruction online.

“Right now, 32% of our personnel are in quarantine,” Shawnee district superintendent Shelly Clover-Hill said Monday.

“We were very hopeful of starting the year in a ‘hybrid’ model (with a mix of in-person and online instruction), but, unfortunately, our situation changed two or three days before we were to start when we had a large portion of our personnel go into quarantine,” Clover-Hill said. “That made us pivot and go remote.”

Initially, the quarantine did not affect the district’s kitchen staff and the district was able to distribute meals to most of students. The Shawnee district encompasses more than 400 square miles of Southern Illinois, including portions of Alexander, Jackson and Union counties.

But about a week ago, the quarantine spread to the cafeteria staff, making it impossible for the district to keep up with meal preparation.

“Our meal program is huge for our students because a lot of them have food insecurity,” Clover-Hill said.

Looking for advice, the Shawnee superintendent called the Illinois Board of Education, which suggested she contact adjacent districts for assistance. Based on that recommendation, Clover-Hill called Kevin Westall, superintendent of the elementary school district in Jonesboro, Illinois.

“I don’t know if he’s going to answer my call the next time my number pops up,” she said with a laugh.

Westall and the Jonesboro district took immediate action.

“I called Wednesday and thought our kids wouldn’t eat Thursday or Friday and that we’d start this week,” she said. “But, God bless them, they didn’t miss a beat. Our kids had food (from the Shawnee District) through Wednesday and Jonesboro had us ready to go on Thursday, so our kids didn’t miss out on any meals.”

On his end, Westall worked closely with Chartwells, the Jonesboro district’s cafeteria contractor.

“We’re preparing 207 breakfasts and lunches (for Shawnee students),” Westall said. “We put them together first thing in the morning and they (Shawnee staff members) come pick them up about 10 o’clock.”

That, on top of the hundreds of meals the Jonesboro district prepares daily for its own students.

“With everything that’s been going on, we’re glad to help,” he said. “One of these days, it may go the other direction.”

“We’re very, very grateful to Mr. Westall and Chartwells, as well as his crew,” Clover-Hill said. “When we show up every day with our buses, even their custodians are helping load (meals). It’s a complete, total team effort on both school districts’ parts.”

Once the meals are loaded, Clover-Hill said the next challenge is distributing meals to various drop-off points throughout the district.

“Missing a third of our personnel, it doesn’t matter what their position is,” she said. “It’s all hands on deck. We’ve got secretaries, administrative staff, assistants, custodians, nurses, you name it. Whatever personnel we have available to deliver, they have gladly stepped up.”

The Shawnee superintendent also credited state officials for greenlighting the joint effort between the districts, which is slated to extend into next week.

“Kudos to the nutrition department at the state board of education,” she said. “They’ve been very helpful and lenient because, I can tell you, in normal times this would never fly, but they understand we had to come up with something or our kids potentially wouldn’t eat for the number of days our staff is in quarantine.”

Although she wasn’t able to comment on how many classroom teachers are quarantined or whether any staff members had tested positive for COVID-19 or were simply quarantined due to a possible exposure, Clover-Hill said “in general, the employees in quarantine have the ability to work remotely.”

The Shawnee District Board of Education will meet Sept. 24, shortly after the end of the quarantine period, to consider how to proceed with the school year.

“If they decide to return to a hybrid or go to full in-person model, families will still have the option to stay home,” Clover-Hill said. “Each family will get to decide what’s best for their family for the time being.”

Ultimately, she said, the important thing is the health and safety of the district’s students and staff.

“This is a bump in the road,” she said. “As long as everybody is safe and healthy, that’s all that matters at the end of the day. We can deal with the rest.”

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