The Waiting Game
As Illinois sits on its hands, other states move to end school mask mandates, affirming push for local control
(Photo Credit: Rockford Register Star)
Good morning and thanks for spending a portion of your day with The Kerr Report.
The July 4th holiday marks the halfway point in our calendar year. Many of us take stock in results, personal and work life, and set goals for the remaining six months of 2021.
Setting attainable goals typically starts with a firm delineation of action items placed into two categories— controllables and uncontrollables.
Control the controllables. Everything else is just noise.
For anyone working in the education sector, or with kids in school, there remains a lot of noise. That is especially the case in Illinois (when is it not?)
Planning for the 2021-22 school year by leaders began well before the end of the 2020-21 year. But there is only so much that can be done absent of Covid-related guidance from state officials.
Almost a week since the official turnover of the calendar, July 1, schools are still waiting.
“I can only speak for myself, but I would like for the state to please provide information immediately,” Community Unit School District 95 Superintendent Kelley Gallt told The Kerr Report. CUSD95 serves schools in Lake Zurich, located in the western part of Lake County. “We have a lot to accomplish over the next several weeks, and while I am confident in my team’s ability to have everything ready, I want to be confident that the state is not going to make significant changes to those plans.”
Gallt is one the numerous big school state superintendents, first reported by The Kerr Report, whom as part of the Large Unit District Association, put their names in an open letter sent in late June to state politicians. Gallt went one step further, penning her own letter last week, a letter signed by each member of the D95 board of education.
The motivation behind the letters was prudent—in order to properly plan and re-open for the coming school year, districts need to know about changes or updates from state agencies like the Illinois Board of State Education. But before ISBE can pass down guidance, it must receive direction from another state agency, the Illinois Department of Public Health, which of course, is controlled by the Dark Lord of Lockdowns, Governor J.B. Pritzker. And IDPH is apparently on summer vacation until the CDC tells them what to do. Because none of the agencies appear to be in much of a hurry to do anything, we are well past July 1 and nothing has changed.
Another driving force behind the letters—local control. Superintendents are pushing a #MakeItLocalIL narrative that they can best serve constituents by being freed to make decisions divorced from the authoritative grasp of Springfield politics.
“Receiving a response is appropriate,” Dr. Gallt said about the open letters. “However, my greatest hope that ISBE would understand the necessity of timely guidance, especially as we are so close to the start of the school year. Additionally, since the 2021-22 school year (in my eyes) begins July 1, 2021, I would have liked to receive guidance by this date in order to apply the new expectations to our second session of summer school programming.”
According to Gallt, a response has come in from ISBE to one of the letters.
Dr. Carmen Ayala, a Pritzker appointee who runs ISBE, told LUDA that ISBE can’t act until, you name it, it receives counsel from IDPH, who in turn, is waiting on the CDC.
Got it? Who’s on first?
Said Gallt:
“The response indicated that the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) (response was received from Dr. Ayala) will not provide clear guidance until after the CDC shares its guidance for schools and then the Illinois Department of Public Health considers this guidance and provides expectations/guidance to ISBE. Dr. Ayala indicated the need for another few weeks of patience from local school districts.”
More patience, huh? You mean like how patient ISBE was when they sent a letter (ghostwritten for Pritzker) to Red Hill School District in downstate Bridgeport and put them on double secret probation for not complying with the indoor mask mandate? You mean that level of patience?
Just so we know what we are talking about here.
Repeatedly, the CDC has said they prefer individual states make their own decisions on masking. It begs the question—what is it exactly that IDPH does? Or ISBE for that matter?
We know what either agency doesn’t do. That’s set policy best for Illinois citizens based on current conditions. If so, masks, contact quarantines and COVID-19 testing would be optional in schools, vaccine contingencies eliminated (if a parent is fine with their child getting dosed with the vaccine, personal choice. But the segregation of identity and permissions grated based on that choice does more harm than good.)
Instead, those in charge of state agencies wait for tweets from federal bureaucrats before doing their jobs.
In many respects with Covid, we are right back where we were a year ago.
Then, #ReturnToPlay was in doubt across the country. Would state governments allow youth sports associations and districts to determine if it were safe to compete? Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Michigan (yes, Michigan!) eventually moved forward with football, while Pritzker droned on about the dangers of “spit and saliva,” going so far as to criticize border states for playing sports and actually saying how “I’m not willing to sacrifice people’s lives or their health” as justification for locking out young athletes from healthy physical and mental competition.
What a crock of shit that was then.
But here we are again. While other states cannonball into open waters, Illinois sits on the deck waiting for permission to jump.
Consider this—Illinois is one of about a dozen states with a still-in-force school mask mandate.
One neighboring state to the east, Indiana, just went green.
On June 30th, the governor, Eric Holcomb, ended the state’s school mask mandate. The ruling allows for local control in determining masking, meaning individual school boards make the call.
Thus far, a majority of Indiana districts are voting ‘mask optional’ or for ‘no masks’ policies.
Wisconsin has done the same. The state of Iowa flat out banned schools from enacting a mask mandate. Michigan’s public health agency advised students continue to mask up but attached a vaccine contingency to the policy.
One Michigan district superintendent, Steve Matthews of Novi Community Schools, said this to the Detroit News:
Part of our dilemma is the governor and MDHHS are sending mixed messages to the community. They are rescinding all the mask mandates and parents hear that, and if they come to school and they hear we need to wear a mask, they may fight that it’s a mixed message. That is where we are struggling now.
Sound familiar? The recent open letters from Illinois superintendents indirectly expressed this same frustration of mixed messaging and decisions dictated first by coercive personal agendas rather than health and safety, as claimed.
Of course, we all know what’s going on in Illinois. We all know all roads of discontent lead back to Pritzker. He’s controls everything, in close consultation with the teacher’s unions, and is on a timetable inattentive to the work flow of those most impacted by his dodgy behavior.
(Let’s not be naive about the looming shadow of teacher’s unions in all decision-making as it pertains to re-opening schools. Even if the CDC came out with a “no restrictions” recommendation, could schools fully open anyway due to conflicts with union contracts? Just askin.’)
As the calendar inches closer to the first day of school, those in charge faced with unanswered questions must still plan ahead.
Gallt said last year’s public health dysfunction forced her district (and likely others) to be more prepared for the opening of school this August.
“District 95 followed a similar process last school year in the absence of state guidance, and I believe this is why we were ready for all scenarios,” Gallt said. “Be ready. Have instructional plans in place that are reflective of the needs of our own students, which District 95 does. Additionally, I believe it is critical to know and understand the CDC current guidance as well as the way in which it shifted and changed over the past school year (the focus became on mitigation strategies linked to low, moderate, and high transmission rates within local areas/communities); continued monitoring of and ability to respond to local health data; study the guidance received from other states to their local school districts, especially any surrounding the State of Illinois (ie. Indiana released new guidance for the 2021-22 school year); community thoughts on the upcoming school year (their greatest hopes), which can be gathered through surveys; and a strong focus on the needs of our students (physical, academic, and emotional).”
That last piece from Gallt is particularly important.
We know community thoughts on masking (against). We know that a strong focus on the needs of students leads to a mask optional policy and an outright rejection of harmful contact quarantines.
When guidance eventually comes from the CDC/IDPH/ISBE, it’s going to include recommendations on indoor masking and quarantines.
What if part of “be ready,” as Gallt said, means reacting to directions that conflict with community sentiment and the physical, academic and emotional needs of students? What recommendation will they make to their individual school boards? (who have final say.)
Look around to our neighbors to the east, north and west. Local control is working. Yes, those states have the benefit of alignment between the governors and public health agencies. They don’t have to worry about getting sued for doing the right thing.
But part of advocating for local control is seizing it, not asking for consent.
That just may be what is necessary after the waiting ends.
For story ideas, article comments/feedback, media inquiries and more, drop note to jon@jonjkerr.com, or @jonjkerr on Twitter.