About Us
Do you believe that New Trier High School parents and students should be given the option of in-school learning? If your answer is yes, then join OpenNewTrier.
OpenNewTrier is made up of concerned New Trier Township parents and community members who want safe, in-person learning for students as an alternative to the only option currently available to them – online learning.
We believe in-school learning is vital for the academic, social and emotional development of students. And the camaraderie that comes from New Trier’s fine arts, sports and extracurricular activities can’t be replicated outside the school. After seven months of no in-person learning, our children desperately need the option of getting back into physical classrooms.
In fact, the New Trier school board’s original plan included options for everyone. Prior to the start of the new school season, the board had designed a hybrid plan that offered everyone choices. Most importantly, those students and teachers who had health concerns were given an online option. Unfortunately, the New Trier teacher’s union opposed the hybrid plan, and the school board reversed course. Since then, all New Trier students have had no choice but to go online. It isn’t working for most.
OpenNewTrier wants to civilly communicate to the board that we strongly support their original efforts to get children back to school with the safety protocols they had in place. We want them to know that they have our backing for reopening. To be clear, we are not interested in politicizing the request for in-person learning. Our goal is to simply advocate for getting our kids safely back to school.
Schools across the state – public, private and parochial – have reopened safely and successfully. And schools all around New Trier, including those that feed into the high school, are all doing some amount of in-person learning. The best example is the Joseph Sears School in Kenilworth, just three blocks from New Trier’s East campus. The school has in-person learning five days a week, supported by a well-orchestrated safety plan. Importantly, it operates two simultaneous tracks to ensure every family, student, and teacher has a choice. The result: 90 percent of families have chosen in-person learning, while 10 percent are online only.
New Trier High School is the pride of our community. It’s a place for our children to learn and grow, to become the best that they can be. It’s why we spend nearly $27,000 per student to access the best in-person education, extracurricular activities and sports that New Trier has to offer.
Join us, four of the 522 parents and community members who have already signed up at OpenNewTrier, in championing an in-person learning option for our children.
Eric Hungness, Anne Haser, Ted Dabrowski, Mary Lyman