Madness and Stupidity in Vernon Hills
Lake County park district school denies Pre-K students education with quarantine order. How is this still happening?
Thursday morning, May 12, while driving his four-year-old son to pre-school, Russ thought about turning back.
A Vernon Hills father of two, Russ had a choice to make. The Vernon Hills Park District that ran the pre-school his son attended, Little Learners, warned him not to come to school that day. A child tested positive for Covid, they told Russ, and his son had been contact traced.
He’d have to quarantine for five days, school officials told Russ. That meant no in-person learning, no interaction with fellow classmates.
As he drove closer to the school, his son in the seat next to him, Russ spotted the police car in front of the main entrance. He pulled over, grabbed his phone and texted his wife.
“Are we sure we want to do this?” he typed.
As the family’s sole income earner, Russ could not afford to lose his job.
“Just don’t get arrested,” his wife typed back.
Russ parked the car, he and his son got out and began the short walk to the entrance of the school.
They were greeted by the head of the school, Julie Freels, its director of compliance, Amy Darling, and a Vernon Hills police officer.
“(Your son) is not allowed in,” Freels said.
“Are you denying my child an education?” Russ said.
:”He is not allowed in,” Freels said again.
When Russ referred to the Illinois Public Health Act, specifically statute 20 ILCS 2305 that states health departments are the only bodies that have legal authority to issue quarantine orders, Feels said she knew nothing about the law.
“You are going to have to leave,” Freels said.
With a police officer standing near by and not wanting any further confrontation, Russ picked up his son and headed back to the parking lot to drive home.
It didn’t take long for his son to begin to cry.
So why are incidents like the one just described still happening as we roll through the spring of 2022?
Why are children being denied schooling over a positive Covid test?
Mostly, it’s due to a continued culture of fear and anxiety, shaped by leaders of public institutions, diseased messaging that trickles down into the general public, over an endemic virus that shouldn’t cause such worried emotions.
“They are never content with merely sheltering themselves, they wish to use brute force to compel others to do things that they think helps them, even if there is no data supporting those things, or they have been proven to not work,” said Dr. Vinay Prasad, author of a Substack newsletter on health policy.
Case in point – with the Vernon Hills pre-school, the entire incident could have been prevented if one adult had acted with reason rather than emotion.
Wednesday (May 11) morning, the school received a call from a parent of one of the pre-schoolers. The parent said their child had tested positive for Covid and wanted to notify the school.
Why? After two plus years of benign data available to anyone with access to the internet, of how children are at no risk, why did this person feel the need to ‘notify the school?’ Of what, exactly?
That reckless action by a skittish parent armed school officials with data they didn’t need to know.
Knowing what it knew, the park district school could have responded in two different ways.
The first would be common sense, advising the parent that if they insisted on continuing to test their child, to keep the child home until he/she tested negative. No classroom disruption necessary. Instead, schools officials did the worst possible thing. They overreacted in following “guidance.”
After the call came in about the positive Covid test, the school identified the classroom the child was in, and immediately ordered the quarantine of four students.
For the last hour of the morning session Wednesday, from approximately 10:30 am to 11:30 am, four pre-school kids and a teacher were isolated in a separate room.
Parents were not notified of the isolation until after the fact.
“What really set me off is the fact they did not reach out to any parent until it was time for pick up,” Russ said. “If making that decision, they have to contact the parents. Four or five year olds do what they are told.”
The day of the quarantine, Russ’s mother-in-law picked up his son from school. She was greeted by a school official who told her of what happened and that the child would be forbidden back on school grounds for at least five days.
Russ and his wife did not know what happened at school until they were told by Russ’s mother-in-law. A letter did go out shortly thereafter from the park district to parents of children “identified as close contacts.” The letter justified the exclusion decision with a curious argument:
Park District policy and guidance from the Illinois Department of Public Health states: For those who can mask upon return, quarantine for five days after last exposure to the COVID-19 case and upon return, mask consistently through Day 10. If unable to mask, quarantine for 10 days.
So many questions.
Just where did this ‘park district policy’ and ‘guidance’ from IDPH come from?
And isn’t it unlawful for a school to exclude students? Mustn’t an order of quarantine come from a public health entity?
What about due process?
The Public Health Act “grants IDPH the supreme authority in matters of quarantine and isolation.” One section of the act (105 ILCS 5/22-12) states:
Preventing or interfering with a child’s attendance at school.
Whoever by threat, menace or intimidation prevents any child entitled to attend a public or non-public school in this State from attending such school or interferes with any such child’s attendance at that school shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor
Sounds like this park district school violated the law when excluding Russ’s son and by denying him a day of education.
But in all matters of law, it comes down to interpretation. And what someone can prove.
Late Wednesday, after his son had returned home after quarantine, Russ sent an email to the park district. He referred to the statute in the health act and requested the school provide an order of quarantine from a local health department.
What he asked for was the due process Judge Raylene Grischow said all students must be granted when she issued her Temporary Restraining Order in the landmark consolidated legal action ruling out of Sangamon County Feb. 4.
In that ruling, Judge Grischow wrote of “violations of healthy children’s substantive due process rights” and “statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed” and called actions that attempt to deny due process “a type of evil.”
Russ got a response to his email sent to VHDP officials from the park district’s attorney, Andrew S. Paine from the firm, Tressler, LLP.
A section of Paine’s email:
You were notified earlier today that your son was identified as a close contact and that, pursuant to Park District policy, he is ineligible to return to class for a minimum of five days. As with all other close contacts, your son will be eligible to return to class in either five or ten days from the date of his last exposure, depending on his willingness and/or ability to wear a mask.
Please be advised that the Park District remains committed to enforcement of this policy. While the Park District is hopeful that it will not be necessary, if you insist on bringing your child to class tomorrow, he will be denied admittance.
The source of the ‘policy’ referred to in this exchange came from Darling, who wrote in a separate email to Russ:
Per your request, I have attached the current IDPH COVID-19 INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR SCHOOLS Decision Tree for Evaluating Symptomatic Individuals from Pre-K, K-12 Schools and Day Care Programs.
Your student falls under Status D- which indicates:
“For those that can mask upon return, quarantine for five days after last exposure to the COVID-19 case and upon return, mask consistently through day 10, or according to test-to-stay protocols. If unable to mask, quarantine for 10 days.”
The Decision Tree is also available at:
Close contacts to the positive case were identified based on attendance by program staff.
The last update to the “Decision Tree” linked in the email is “March 22, 2022,” well after the February legal rulings played out that labeled forced masking and quarantining of students by schools unlawful.
Under “Status D,” of the “Decision Tree guidance, it states that close contact asymptomatic individuals “quarantine for five days after last exposure to the COVID-19 case and upon return, mask consistently through day 10.” This is the exact instruction given from the park district to Russ about his son.
A footnote to the guidance states, “if the individual has been identified by local health department or school as a close contact, or knows they are a close contact to a case, the individual should be quarantined.”
So did the Vernon Hills Park District notify the health department and seek consult or did it act independently?
I reached out to the Illinois Department of Public Health and explained the situation in Vernon Hills. I wanted to know if the park district school fell under the “Decision Tree” guidelines and if the school had the authority to quarantine students.
The response from Mike Claffey, IDPH Chief Information Officer:
I touched base with the staff here and we are not in a position to weigh in at this point. But it was suggested Lake County officials are closer to the situation and may be able to address it.
I did the same with the Lake County Health Department.
Reached by phone, Emily Young, the LCHD public information officer, did not confirm or deny a case record at VHPD.
“I don’t know if our contact tracers would be able to confirm if someone is a close contact especially a child,” Young said. “Typically we are unable to comment on that type of a case as it’s considered health information.”
In a follow up conversation with Young Monday afternoon, she said LCHD does not have full regulatory authority over Pre-K schools such as the Little Learners in Vernon Hills.
“We recommend they reach out and follow IDPH guidelines for schools or day care,” Young said.
Young added how Pre-K schools, day care centers or private businesses “have been going through similar situations navigating guidance.
“We appreciate when they reach out to us and help them navigate. But they are not required to do so.”
Based on the information available, its reasonable to conclude the Vernon Hills Park District, in quarantining four healthy children and denying them access to education, acted on their own and took “guidance” from public health as gospel.
(Numerous emails and phone calls to VHPD officials by The Kerr Report went unanswered.)
Is this lawful? Can any public entity just do as it pleases when it comes to public health?
That’s a dangerous precedent if so.
I called up Patrick Walsh, partner in the Chicagoland based law firm Griffin, Williams, McMahon and Walsh. Walsh has represented plaintiffs suing Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker and IDPH for forced masking and quarantine actions.
“The health department has to issue the order of quarantine. The school can never do that,” Walsh said.
All of the court cases pre-dating the wide scale Feb. 4 TRO were around the issue of authority – who has it, who doesn’t. Pritzker believed he had it until the courts told him to stop. School districts thought they could tell students not to mask and exclude them from learning, but the courts said no way.
Only health departments have that power, under the authority of the legislative branch of government.
“Because an administration agency gets power form the legislature and they cannot transfer their power amongst one another. Because the legislature has deemed the IDPH as ultimate authority on matters of quarantine; school districts are not,” Walsh said. “The act says that the Department of Public Heath can issue an initial quarantine but with a certain amount of time. Then they have to provide you with due process.”
Walsh said the school could have contacted the Lake County Health Department and requested an order of quarantine. LCHD could have then served the parents with the order. There is no record of this occurring and no one is talking (Russ said he and his wife never received anything from LCHD).
If served, parents could comply with a quarantine order or reject it. That’s the due process lawyers continue to argue for on behalf of children and parents.
“That’s why these cases need to be decided in court. People have a right to be heard,” Walsh said.
What’s being fought, though, is harder to defeat than law itself.
It’s the continued protection by institutions of fear-led cultures. Those in charge of these institutions do not want to collapse the infrastructure they worked so hard to build. They continue to cower to the lowest common denominator – the serial complainers and anxiety-addicts.
That’s the new status quo.
Russ isn’t sure yet what he and his wife are going to do.
Monday, he got an email from Jeff Fougerousse, Executive Director of the Vernon Hills Park District.
It reads:
On behalf of the Park Board of Commissioners and my office please be advised that the Park District remains to enforcement of the quarantine policy that was put in place with our recent close contact matters impacting our preschool and nature explorers program.
While the Park District is hopeful that it will not be necessary if you insist on bringing your son to class Tuesday and Wednesday (Thursday is an outdoor day and masks are optional) without a mask (face covering) he will be denied admittance.
A clear day with 70 degree temperatures, Russ and his wife took their two children to the Milwaukee Zoo Monday.
When I talked to him on the phone that afternoon, he said his son had shown no symptoms and refused to submit him to a COVID test.
“I’m not going to virtue signal to the larger audience,” Russ said.
Thursday night, after the confrontation at the school, Russ’s son had an enjoyable rest of his day playing outside (for the record, Russ said the Vernon Hills Police Officer was terrific to his son and made him feel comfortable after what was an upsetting incident being refused entry at the school).
Later that night, during bedtime, Russ’s son had trouble comprehending what had happened.
“My son, who is the biggest extrovert in the world, he’s crying and asking ‘why doesn’t Miss Julie (Freels, the preschool director) not want me to go to school there?’” Russ said. “At his age (5.5 years) we don’t want to sour him, not make it more traumatic but also not give in to this fight.”
Taking the fight to court may be cost prohibitive. Russ did speak to an attorney but any legal action came with a $2,000 retainer. He’ll likely ride this out and have his son say goodbye to his friends on the ‘mask optional’ day, this coming Thursday (May 19).
Before the quarantine, Russ and his wife knew they would not enroll their son in a public school for the 2022-23 school year. What happened this past week solidified their decision.
“We moved here (Mundelein) because of the school district. How public school’s have reacted to (Covid) with these draconian measures was our deciding factor in going private and not dealing with this overreach,” he said.
The experience with the Little Learners school has taught him a valuable adult life lesson.
Affecting change sometimes requires getting one’s hands dirty.
Rather than just rage against the machine, better to join and try and fix it.
“This kind of inspired me as a lot of people I talked to have had similar stories, not knowing what to do,” Russ said. “Having contacts and being a larger presence, I can help amplify the message and pay it forward for other people.”
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Well documented, Jon. This is a lesson to parents: be armed with knowledge of the law…and stand up for your children.
Great reporting, Jon.
Parents, be like Russ. Read the law and know your/your child's rights.
A school or daycare has zero authority to accuse your child of exposure and order him/her to stay home from school, get a test, wear a mask, etc., based on that alleged exposure.
The most a school can do independently is what they've always done with a reportable communicable disease: Send notice to parents they have been notified of one or more cases in the classroom, grade level, or school, and tell you what symptoms to watch for.
Anything more than that with respect to non-sick children has to come directly from the health department to the parent, in the form of an actual order (not a generic notice).