Citing a court order, new reopening plan, this southwest IL school goes mask-optional

Starting Thursday, O’Fallon Township High School 203 will be mask optional for all students.

The school board voted unanimously to change the district’s learning plan at a special meeting Wednesday night.

There were two major changes to the COVID landscape within the last week that prompted the change, Superintendent Darcy Benway said.

First, Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow issued a temporary restraining order suspending the mask mandate for those students whose families are plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the mandates.

Second, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday that he intended to end the indoor mask mandate in Illinois on Feb. 28, as long as hospitalizations continue to decline as projected. Schools will still require masks beyond that date, though he indicated that within a few weeks that could change as well. Local and federal mask requirements still stand.

“I’m a rule follower. I’ve never picked and chosen which rules to follow,” Benway told the board and around 100 community members at the meeting Wednesday night.

However, she noted that Pritzker’s decision to open other public indoor spaces while still requiring masks in schools made little sense to her.

The temporary restraining orders only apply to the individual plaintiffs named in the lawsuits, Benway noted. Nearly 170 school districts around Illinois are named as defendants in one or both cases, along with Pritzker and other state public health and education officials. O’Fallon District 203 is not one of them.

Grischow decided not to certify the class before she granted the temporary restraining order. Certifying the class would have granted students and school employees who are not specifically named in the filing the same privileges that come with the temporary restraining order.

By not certifying the class, the scope of the temporary restraining order is limited to the individuals specifically named as plaintiffs.

State Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration are appealing the decision.

School districts have generally been advised by their attorneys to follow the mask mandate, and those that have not have previously been put on probation by the Illinois State Board of Education. Between Pritzker’s announcement of the timeline to reopen and the temporary restraining order, Benway said the district had “dependable markers” to protect against legal liability.

Aligning with the Feb. 28 date for the rest of the state could further mitigate some risks, Benway said, but the school board opted to open immediately.

Before public comment, the school board took a straw poll, where all seven board members indicated they would vote in favor of going mask optional.

Twenty-four people gave public comments, with opinions split evenly on the mask mandate. Fourteen of those commenters were high school students, with most of them asking the board to keep the mandate.

The board’s only action Wednesday was on the mask mandate. For now, O’Fallon 203 will continue to quarantine or exclude students who are close contacts, even if they have no symptoms and don’t have a positive test. The board may discuss changing that policy at its next meeting on Feb. 17.

The teachers union supports the mask-optional policy, but wants to keep the current quarantine and exclusion procedures, Benway said.

The district will continue to track COVID-19 case numbers. At the beginning of the year, Benway said the district had 11 positive cases. Jan. 7 was the height of cases in the district, with 81. On Wednesday, there were three.

Several board members indicated that if the number of cases in the district rose, they were prepared to put the mask mandate back in place.

“If we’re going to take local control, we have to take all sides of that responsibility,” said board member Martha Stoffel.

Masks are still required on school buses, under a federal mandate for public transportation.

Around the metro-east, other school districts are figuring out what to do with the temporary restraining order. Some districts, including Collinsville CUSD 10 and Edwardsville CUSD 7, are opting to strictly follow the temporary restraining order, and only allow the named plaintiffs to unmask.

Other districts, are going mask-optional for all students, as Freeburg CCSD 70, Freeburg CHSD 77, Smithton CCSD 130 and St. Libory CSD announced in a joint statement.

While the meeting in O’Fallon on Wednesday night ran smoothly, school board meetings and other public meetings in the metro-east have often been extremely tense over the last year, as many parents have expressed strong feelings about what they want their childrens’ schools to do.

At a Collinsville 10 school board meeting Monday night, President Gary Pecolla attempted to end public commentary multiple times and was met with the audience booing and yelling. Two board members attempted to walk out, but then sat back down. As the board voted to move into closed session, members of the crowd continued yelling and refused to follow the board president’s requests to limit public commentary.

At a Madison County Health Advisory Committee meeting Tuesday night, Madison County Chairman Kurt Prenzler told the galley they were out of order after they continued to talk over members of the committee.