Fight For Freedom: "I'm denied an education for standing up for my rights."

Events at Vernon Hills High School and around Chicagoland this week could mark inflection point in student-driven pushback on Pritzker's unlawful mandates

Sunday night, I received a tip that between 80-100 Vernon Hills High School students were planning to gather in the parking lot outside before school Monday morning.

The purpose of the gathering?

To organize before walking into the school together not wearing masks.

A judge’s ruling Friday granted legal affirmation that forced masking by school districts represented a denial of students’ due process.

These students were prepared to exercise their due process by walking into school maskless Monday morning.

By 8:40 a.m., the group, which turned out to be closer to three dozen or so in numbers, gathered together a few yards from the school entrance.

A few of them told me why they were doing this and why now.

“A bunch of other schools have gone to mask optional and I feel like we need to do the same,” Jason Lee said, a senior at VHHS. “We decided it’s a Monday and to start the week off strong.”

“We’re going to walk in without masks and hopefully we won’t get in trouble,” junior Campbell Lorenz said.

By “trouble” Lorenz is referring to the legal machinations by districts in the wake of Friday’s Temporary Restraining Order motion granted by Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Raylene Grischow.

The original legal action filing last October included hundreds of plaintiffs from almost 200 school districts throughout Chicagoland and the state of Illinois.

Those named plaintiffs – students – by having been granted the TRO, are legally able to enter school property Monday maskless. Even the schools have acknowledged as such. Otherwise, they would be contempt.

(I was told by a parent who’s child was a plaintiff how the school had called to ask if they had any advice on how they should identify the student once arriving on campus. Maybe a gold star or some type of sticker? They settled on a “special pass.”)

Here’s where things remain hazy – the status of other students who wish to unmask not named in the successful TRO. That position made up the majority of students at VHHS who entered school maskless Monday.

They believe the judge’s ruling makes it unlawful for schools to mandate forced masking.

“We want to exercise our right and we don’t think it’s fair that six or seven kids on the ruling can wear masks and we can’t as students in the same school,” Lorenz said.

But school leaders think different. They believe the judge’s ruling only applies to named plaintiffs in the TRO and not the rest of the student body. In the 30-page ruling, Judge Grischow “deemed null and void” the governor’s emergency rules through the Illinois Department of Public Health concerning COVID-19 mitigations for schools (which includes forced masking).

Administrators are hiding behind legal advice in avoiding the part of the judge’s directive that deems “null and void” Prtizker’s rule-by-executive order. For them, it’s business as usual. And that means forced masking, quarantines and other non-data supported Covid mitigations.

An email from D128 superintendent Denise Herrmann sent Feb. 6:

D128 Parents/Guardians:

On Friday, Feb. 4 in Sangamon County, Judge Grischow issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in the lawsuit in which District 128 was named as a defendant. This lawsuit was filed by more than 700 parents at 146 school districts across the state that challenged state-mandated COVID-19 mitigations.

Following consultation with legal counsel, District 128 will continue to enforce the mask mandate and the quarantine restrictions for all students, staff and visitors as outlined in the District 128 Culture of Care Comprehensive Plan, except for the named student plaintiffs. The masking, along with all of the D128 Prevention Strategies, has allowed both Libertyville and Vernon Hills High School to remain open for in-person learning and extracurricular activities.

Here’s a message sent from Warren Township High School District 121 superintendent John P. Ahlgrim:

We know where they stand, on the side of willful neglect.

But not all districts interpret the ruling the same.

Located on the southwestern tip of Lake County, Barrington School District 220 announced a mask optional policy, effective immediately. One of the largest districts in DuPage County, Wheaton Community School District 200, changed its guideline to mask optional.

Lake Forest District 115, not far from the campus’s of mask-obsessed schools in District 128 and 121, interpreted the judge’s ruling by endorsing a ‘mask optional’ environment on school grounds.

Jon J. Kerr @jonjkerr

School District 115 ⁦⁦⁦@LFHS_LakeForest⁩ will “comply with order” and not require masks beginning Monday.

This disparity in interpretation – based not on objective data, but the subjective advice of lawyers – gets the fundamental root issue of so much contentiousness around Covid.

What authority do you have to tell me what I can or cannot do? How much do we alter the rest of society’s behavior to accommodate the feelings (yes, feelings, as that’s what most of Covid is about) of others?

And what is this really about? Why were mandates enforced just a few days ago now null and void? Is this really about science or politics?

When it comes to the law, a judge is a pretty good authority. But there are plenty of school board members and administrators around Chicagoland who don’t think this judge’s authority over the law overrides their legal counsel’s interpretation of said judge’s directive.

So that’s why we have what we have at Vernon Hills High School and at many other schools this week.

Back to Monday morning.

Before the maskless students walked into the school, a parent standing by gave advice on how they should frame the argument to skeptical administrators.

“You are being denied due process…it is illegal what they are doing!”

When the students walked through the front doors, they were greeted by masked school personnel.

The principal, Jon Guillaume, said, “we can’t let you in class without a mask.”

The group was then ushered into a gymnasium where they were given options for the day.

I waited in the foyer along with the other parents who were there. One of the parents was on the phone with her daughter, who was dictating what was being said by Guillaume.

“The principal is saying they can’t go to class,” she said.

During the 15 or so minutes the students were in the gymnasium, I spoke to a few of the parents. All the parents I spoke with, fathers, had multiple students enrolled at the high school.

In two instances, the older one chose to unmask, while the other chose not to.

“I asked my younger one and he wasn’t comfortable doing it,” said Socrates Vela said. Vela has a senior daughter and freshman son at VHHS. “I didn’t force them to do anything. I was very proud to see my straight A student step up to the plate and she wants to exercise her first amendment (rights).”

But the decision by his daughter to unmask did not come without a cost. She is starting to narrow down her college decision and does not want to miss a day of school. “She can’t miss a day,” Vela said.

Vela, an Army veteran, believes strongly in the rule of law. And a judge is the ultimate authority on defining the law.

“I served to ensure that we are a land of laws and not mandates,” Vela said. “The judge clearly said although we are not a plaintiff the law is this, and if you continue this behavior the masking the testing and the contact tracing you will be acting unlawfully.”

Another Vernon Hills dad, Mike, witnessed in person the events of Monday morning.

He has two sons at the school, a junior and a freshman. The junior was part of the maskless group while the freshman kept his on.

His frustration was palpable with decisions made by state and school leaders.

“My junior has spent two years in a mask and my freshman has spent every day in one. We have gotten to the point where these things are beyond ridiculous,” Mike said. “It started out as two weeks to slow the spread then to take these vaccines and nothing has worked to this point in time and people continue to follow what isn’t working. That has to stop.”

Steve St. Louis, a father of two VHHS children both of whom were named in the TRO, watched as his sophomore and junior were granted a maskless entrance.

St. Louis is a military veteran who fought in the Gulf War. He drives a Chevy Silverado van decorated in patriotic emblems.

He parked his truck in front of the school Monday morning, the uncomplicated messaging from its signage front and center.

“I couldn’t sit back and not do anything. I talked to my kids about fighting back and standing up for our God-given rights and what this country was founded on,” St. Louis said. “This tells me people are waking up and are taking the opportunity to get their voice out beyond the censoring the governor is putting down.”

Eventually, the students emerged from their meeting with the principal.

They said Guillaume did most of the talking although he did allow for questions.

“He basically said the same thing over and over again. How it’s ‘not in my power to do anything. We have an attorney and it’s their decision, their ruling,’” said one student. “Someone asked ‘why do some have to wear masks and others don’t?’ He said, ‘well, I don’t know the science.’ We’re like, ‘OK.’”

I emailed D128 communications director Mary Todoric in an attempt to be more clear on the district’s position with the maskless students. The same situation happened at Libertyville High School, where a group of students were also quarantined inside a gym and ordered to mask up or miss a school day.

Here is the response I received from Tordoric:

Students refusing to wear masks were not allowed to go to class. District 128 students refusing to wear masks had a meeting with their principals and were given an opportunity to explain their position and ask questions.  At the conclusion of these discussions, all students were given a choice of three options: put on a mask and go to class, leave school and have a parent report the absence, or stay in the gym and complete classwork. 

At Vernon Hills, all that I saw chose the ‘leave school’ option.

“I’m being denied an education for standing up for my rights!” said on student on her way out of the building.

“They gave me a mask. So I’m leaving,” said another.

They all left. Another day of classroom learning lost.

The video I posted on social media of the Monday walk out got 1 million or so views. I got emails/DM’s from Fox News and the Daily Mail about using the video for stories.

Sometimes its hard to put a finger on how these things go viral, especially a relatively benign 15 second video of kids walking through doors.

But the symbolism here matters. Of young people rejecting unlawful authority. The unlawful part is key as authority can be a good thing, like a teacher demanding homework be turned in or a life guard ordering a five-year old to stay in the kiddie pool.

But here, at a suburban high school, 23 months after we first became acquainted with the virus, to deny an education to students for doing what a judge said they could do, reject forced masking based on due process?

That’s worthy of a rebuff. Of overreaching authority. That’s why the video took off, I think, when taking into consideration the context of the moment.

But as someone who worked in television news for a decade, here’s what I know – that industry is fickle. The 24-hour news cycle demands it. The national/global interest will be unsustainable.

It’s up to the students (and parents) to keep resisting and sharing publicly the images of that opposition.

As I witnessed Monday at Vernon Hills High School, and we are seeing more of Tuesday at schools throughout Chicagoland, there is strength in numbers, inspiration through cause.

And most of all, vitality through action.

“Hell yeah! Freedom brothers!” said a parent Monday.

In response, a student replied: “See you tomorrow.”

For story ideas, article comments/feedback, media inquiries and more, drop note to jon@jonjkerr.com, or @jonjkerr on Twitter.