September 4, 2024
2:00 p.m.

Dear Skokie 73.5 Families:

Thank you for your continued patience with the electrical service outage. We are reaching out with an update on the progress toward restoring service and with news about school for tomorrow, Thursday, September 5, 2024.

After learning of the service outage at McCracken Middle School in the early hours of September 3, 2024, we closed our buildings and implemented our remote learning plan to best preserve the safety of our students, staff, and families. McCracken is the hub for our district’s network and security systems, and we consequently could not ensure consistent network and life safety system operation in each of our buildings. Upon determining on the evening of September 3, 2024, that service had not yet been restored and our primary safety concerns had not been resolved, we decided to keep all of our buildings closed and again implement our remote learning plan on Wednesday, September 4, 2024.

McCracken Middle School currently remains without consistent electrical service. Crews from our electrical service providers are still working to restore service there. In anticipation of a continued outage at McCracken, we have worked with our support providers to ensure our life safety systems at Meyer and Middleton are now meeting our safety requirements and will operate independent of McCracken. Additionally, we are working to bring full Internet connectivity back online for Meyer and Middleton, but anticipate limited to no internet throughout the day while we continue working to restore power at McCracken.

Because life safety systems have been restored at Meyer School and Middleton Elementary School, beginning tomorrow, September 5, 2024, Meyer School and Middleton Elementary School will open and operate on their normal schedules.

• Bus service will operate normally at both schools.
• Lunch service will operate at both Meyer and Middleton. Please note that the menu may differ from what was previously communicated.
• Internet connectivity at each school may be intermittent; however, telephones are working should you need to contact Middleton or Meyer.

Since electrical service and life safety system function remain inconsistent at McCracken Middle School, McCracken will remain closed tomorrow, September 5, 2024, and we will continue implementation of our remote learning plan at McCracken only.

Middleton’s Curriculum Night, scheduled for September 4, 2024, will be hosted asynchronously as previously communicated so that parents can obtain essential information about the 2024-2025 school year in a timely fashion. McCracken Middle School’s Curriculum Night, scheduled for September 5, 2024, will also be hosted asynchronously. This means that we will not hold these two Curriculum Nights in person. Instead, each school will send their families an email message containing their Curriculum Night content that each family will have an opportunity to explore at their own pace. The district is exploring additional ways for families to visit our schools in person. We will communicate these opportunities to families as they are created. Please also stay tuned for updates from Middleton about White Pines Information Night.

FOR McCRACKEN STUDENTS AND FAMILIES ONLY:

• McCracken Middle School students will have a Remote Learning Day on Thursday, September 5, 2024
• If your student is sick tomorrow, September 5, 2024, or you have already planned for your student to be absent from school, please use Attendance Monitor to record the absence as you normally would on any other school day. For all other students, you do not need to take additional action: your student will be marked “Remote Present” in PowerSchool.
• Students are expected to attend advisory class remotely using Google Meet at 8:00 a.m.
• Please refer to the communication sent to families and students which outlines student learning expectations for the school day.

We look forward to welcoming our Meyer and Middleton students back into our buildings tomorrow while we continue working to bring back McCracken students as quickly and safely as possible. We will continue to update all district families about the situation as it continues to unfold. Should you have any questions along the way, please contact [email protected].

We appreciate that this situation has posed numerous challenges for our district’s families. We are grateful for your flexibility and patience as we continue working to resolve this service outage.

Sincerely,

Dr. Zipporah Hightower
Superintendent