Kendall County Times

District 308 school officials in Oswego were recently forced to turn to remote learning for some students after roughly one-third of the area’s school bus drivers and monitors called out of work.

ABC7 News reported dozens of school bus drivers not reporting for work left the state’s seventh largest school district hobbled, and forced school officials to prioritize getting elementary school students to class as they did not have a remote learning plan in place.

"I got the call and what was going on, you know, they didn't really give us a reason at first and then we found out that everybody's gonna be remote," parent Marcy Turnquist told ABC7. "We just kind of went with the flow."

School officials started making calls to homes early Tuesday morning after finding out around 4 a.m. that there would not be enough drivers to fill normal routes. With the district serving 17,000 students, Patch reported 24 drivers and 15 monitors called out.

Not everyone found the transition to be a smooth one.

"The teachers were surprised, they didn't really know what they were going to do, they didn't know what they were going to teach us today because they already had plans for in-school," said Cameran Guzman, a junior high school student.

While district communications director Theresa Komitas said district officials do not believe the absences were related to COVID, she admitted authorities aren’t certain the drivers couldn’t have been organized.  

In an email to parents Tuesday night, Superintendent John Sparlin said school officials expressed hope things would return to normal soon, but couldn’t be sure.

Meanwhile, some students weren’t shy about expressing what they hope to see happen.

"I would definitely like to avoid remote learning," said student Kristin Parr. "I think kids need to be back in school, I think they're doing better back in school." Added fellow student Jacqueline Enghdal, "I am hoping we are able to get back because remote is definitely not ideal."