Harrisburg schools to follow governor's mask mandate
Harrisburg Unit District 3 has accepted the mask mandate that came down from Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office on Aug. 4 and applies to every P-12 school in Illinois.
District 3, which earlier had decided school would be "mask optional," changed its mind last Thursday in a special school board meeting, where the district's attorney said the ramifications of ignoring the mandate could eventually include nonrecognition by the state.
That could lead to total loss of state funding and loss of the school's ability to engage in any Illinois High School Association and Illinois Elementary School Association athletic competitions.
Teachers returned to District 3 on Monday and students are back in class on Wednesday.
District 3 Administrator Eric Witges said Monday that the disappointing thing about losing local control is losing the flexibility to impose a mask mandate - as well as remove it - based on the COVID-19 numbers in Harrisburg and Saline County.
Witges has been tapped to be the district's next superintendent when longtime Superintendent Mike Gauch retires next summer.
Instead, he said, under Pritzker control one assumes masks will not become optional in Harrisburg until COVID-19 numbers drop significantly across all of Illinois.
At the meeting, 30 or 40 members of the public were present and most of them wanted masks to remain optional, many of them arguing that their children can't tolerate wearing masks for a full school day.
Some other school districts in southern Illinois are defying the state mandate and are only "recommending" masks be worn, not requiring them. Both the Benton High School district and elementary district are among them.
As of last Friday, 45 more residents in Saline, Gallatin and White counties had tested positive for COVID-19. Saline had a total of 3,170 lab-confirmed positive tests, including 58 deaths. White County has had 2,080 lab-confirmed positives, including 27 deaths, and Gallatin County has a total of 605 lab-confirmed positives of COVID-19, including four deaths.
Illinois State Superintendent Carmen Ayala sent a letter to Illinois districts last week, warning them that noncompliance with the governor's mandate is "not an option."
"I will not compromise the health and safety of students or staff, nor will I risk even one child's life," she wrote. "Local boards of education, schools, and school districts do not have the authority to deny the Governor's Executive Order requiring universal indoor masking in schools. Doing so not only puts students' health and safety at risk but also opens the district to extraordinary legal liability - potentially without any insurance to cover damages."