Staff
/ WGLT
Bloomington-Normal and Peoria lawmakers are asking the Pritzker administration to address what they call an “oversight” that has kept children’s museums closed while many other types of museums and indoor recreation options have reopened.
Vaccinations are underway and case counts are down. But Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois plan continues to keep children’s museums closed. That’s because its museum guidelines say “hands-on exhibits should be closed or modified to eliminate the hands-on component.” For children’s museums, that’s pretty much everything.
“This means while most museums are allowed to reopen and begin to recover from a year-long closure, children’s museums and science centers, which contain almost 100% ‘hands-on exhibits,’ will remain shuttered until Phase 5,” they wrote. “The policy does not seem consistent and could be seen as unfairly targeting museums which were widely recognized as industry leaders in cleaning protocols before the pandemic.”