Sunny Hill Elementary School
When Barrington School District 220 began welcoming students back into the classroom in October, nearly 90% of children who attend Hough Street School in the heart of the village arrived for in-person instruction.
Heading west past the horse farms and rolling fields of Barrington Hills, the district’s Sunny Hill School in Carpentersville also reopened. But only about 1 in 4 families at Sunny Hill — where 90% of students are economically disadvantaged — allowed their children to return to the classroom.
This tale of two schools — less than 8 miles apart, but a world away when it comes to parents’ reactions to the coronavirus — began a rocky new chapter this week, as District 220 joined a growing list of suburban Chicago schools that are pausing in-person instruction due to the record high rate of COVID-19 cases.
Now, many parents, particularly from middle- and upper-income communities in the Chicago area, are again demanding a reopening of schools, saying their children are suffering from social isolation and academic regression they believe pose a greater danger than the virus itself.
Yet as parents in more affluent communities like Elmhurst, Lincolnshire and Libertyville organize rallies in support of open schools, fears that in-person classes will increase the risks of coronavirus exposure to students and staff — and, by extension, to their families — are only growing, especially in lower-income and more racially diverse communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
That all of this is playing out during an economic crisis and perhaps one the most polarized presidential elections in U.S. history has only escalated tensions.
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