Friday, September 3, 2021
Dear Hoopeston Area Employees, Families & Community Stakeholders,
Today, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and Gov. JB Pritzker announced the compliance timeline for school personnel to be vaccinated for COVID-19 or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing has been extended until September 19. Initially, schools had to be in compliance with the executive order by September 5.
It remains our intent to be in compliance with the governor’s executive order, and we will continue to communicate internally with staff on the specifics of how we will verify staff vaccination status, and coordinate weekly testing with appropriate staff members.
This extension will greatly help our administration work through logistical challenges, delays with testing materials, and other issues we have encountered establishing a COVID-19 testing program that serves the needs of our staff and contributes to sustaining in-person learning for our students.
Our collective experiences since March 2020 have tested everyone’s patience and resilience, but I hope we can stick together and continue to focus on our top priority of educating our students in person, every day.
We will continue to keep you updated. Please enjoy the Labor Day weekend.
Sincerely,
Robert Richardson
Superintendent