Illinois Teachers Unions Attempt A Huge Power-Grab Over Private Schools
May 6, 2021
Teachers unions in Illinois are pushing a bill through the General Assembly that would strip local school districts, health departments, and private schools of their authority to make health-related decisions, centralizing those powers at the state level.
House Bill 2789 requires the Illinois Department of Public Health to create new regulations governing in-person instruction, which must “include, but … not [be] limited to, personal protective equipment, cleaning and hygiene, social distancing, occupancy limits, symptom screening, and on-site isolation protocols.” Any school public or private failing to comply with these new regulations would not be allowed to offer in-person instruction in Illinois.
AP Photo/LM Otero
The Illinois Federation of Teachers is pushing a bill through the legislature that would force all schools, public and private, to follow strict guidelines for resuming in-person instruction. It would give authority to the state’s public health department to set standards and requirements for schools even after the governor’s state of emergency is lifted and the pandemic has ended. There will be no expiration date for the protocols.
The bill is being opposed by both private parochial schools and Chicago Public Schools, along with the state board of education. It promises to make public and private schools subject to state rather than local control.
SPRINGFIELD â Like many parents in the summer of 2020, Donna Skelton was curious as to how her local school district, Ball-Chatham, would navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall.
She and her husband Terry are working parents of two children, 10-year-old Adrianne and 8-year-old Addison. After spending the spring of 2020 working through the district s online learning, she awaited the plan for returning kids full-time to the classroom. Chatham was looking at several different things, Skelton said. They weren t set on something, it kept changing (and) everybody was trying to figure out something that worked.
Eventually, the Ball-Chatham School Board decided to begin the 2020-21 school year with a hybrid model where students would attend in-person for half the day on certain days. However, the Skelton children would still have had to do some virtual learning, an option that wasn t the best for the family.
A little over two weeks ago, Pleasant Plains High School senior Kameron Wolters correctly answered his 1,000th toss-up question over four years of competition in Scholastic Bowl, an Illinois High School Association-sanctioned activity.
John Barrett, one of Wolters coaches, likened it to a basketball player who scores 2,000 points or a volleyball player who totals 1,000 kills for a career.
Wolters, who reached the milestone during an online tournament, buzzed in a correct answer about Ralph Ellison s novel, Invisible Man. It was kind of ironic that my 1,000th was a literature question, Wolters said last week, because that s not typically my favorite subject or my best subject for scholastic.
While some some schools decided to go to remote learning, other districts declared Tuesday a snow day with an almost puckish enthusiasm. Enjoy your day off tomorrow! This is great binge-watching weather, Jacksonville school superintendent Steve Ptacek wrote in a social media post Monday. Tuesday will be a snow day (No School For Students). Williamsville sledding hills will be open, countered Williamsville-Sherman superintendent Tip Reedy.
With lingering snow, deteriorating travel conditions and single-digit temperatures, many districts made the decision early Monday to close or go to remote learning on Tuesday. Many school districts were off school Monday for Presidents Day.