A school district update was given Tuesday during the weekly meeting of the Fairbury Rotary Club.
Prairie Central Superintendent Paula Crane noted over half of the district employees are now fully vaccinated. From a health standpoint, the district has been doing well ever since students returned to in-person learning after Christmas.
“Our (case) numbers are way down,” said Crane.
Academics are a bit more challenging as students are behind, especially those choosing remote learning. Crane feels in-person learning is safe as data shows schools are not super-spreaders.
“There’s just no replacement for a live teacher in front of kids.”
The biggest student failure numbers have occurred at the junior high and high school levels but those numbers have been reduced significantly thanks to extra efforts to work with the students.
PCHS Athletic Director Austin Wenger also spoke at the meeting and said the new football bleachers are nice and they are excited for the coming football season. Wenger said PC has been playing basketball and cheerleading is taking place. The boys and girls teams are both very competitive and having good seasons.
“The kids have been enjoying it,” Wenger observed.
Football practice officially starts this week and the first home game is March 26 with limited homecoming festivities planned for that night. At this time, games remain limited for fans per IDPH guidelines.
Other spring and summer sports are planned such as track, wrestling, baseball and softball. A state series is possible for the later sports since they didn’t have any type of post-season last year.
