The battle over school mask mandates may be headed to the Illinois supreme court
The battle over school mask mandates may be headed to the Illinois supreme court.
Late Thursday, the 4th District Appellate Court denied a file for appeal after a temporary restraining order was granted to hundreds of students and school employees that limited how schools could enforce certain COVID-19 safety mitigations. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued a statement Friday saying he will take the case to the state’s highest court.
“The appellate court’s failure to address the important legal issues in question has added to the confusion resulting from the circuit court’s decision prioritizing a relatively small group of plaintiffs who refuse to acknowledge science or the need for public health measures to protect vulnerable Illinois residents,” Raoul said.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s press secretery Jordan Abudayyeh also issued a statement Friday urging districts to maintain the mitigations.
“The administration is working with the attorney general to request an expedited review of this decision from the Supreme Court,” Abudayyeh said. “In the meantime, the governor urges everyone to continue following the doctors’ advice to wear masks so students can remain safely learning in classrooms, and is encouraged that the court made it clear that school districts can continue to keep their own mitigations in place.”
Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow granted the plaintiffs in two court cases temporary restraining orders on Feb. 4. One case was over mask mandates and close-contact quarantines for students, and the other was for school employees and the mandate to either receive the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing.
The temporary restraining orders blocked school and state officials from enforcing those mandates for the named plaintiffs. Soon after, Gov. J.B. Pritzker filed the appeal.
In the weeks since Grischow’s ruling, Pritzker announced that the indoor mask mandate will end for most locations at the end of the month. While he intended for school mandate to remain in place, he said that the mandate may be reconsidered in a few weeks, though he didn’t give a more detailed timeline.
Between the temporary restraining order and Pritzker’s reopening announcement, schools in Illinois started to roll back their mask requirements, including many in the metro-east.
For now, the focus is on the mask mandate. Most metro-east districts have not publicly discussed changing the quarantine, vaccine or masking rules.
O’Fallon Township High School was set to discuss the close-contact quarantine rules on Thursday, but the meeting was moved to Tuesday due to weather.
Before the appellate court decision, a bipartisan legislative committee in Springfield suspended the renewal of the state’s emergency mask mandate in schools this week. That vote spurred even more school districts to encourage, but not enforce, masking in school.
Despite those two developments, both Pritzker and Raoul insist the mandates still stand for districts not included in the lawsuits.
This story was originally published February 18, 2022 at 1:49 PM.
