East Central Reporter

An Illinois state senator who is also a former school board member is encouraging residents in local communities to run for their school boards in order "to rescue" public schools from the government’s hands.

State Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) said in an interview on YouTube that local residents should become involved in government, in particular because of what is happening with the re-opening of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. JB Pritzker announced on March 18 a “Bridge to Phase 5” plan to re-opening Illinois that allows “for higher capacity limits and increased business operations” before going to “the fifth and final phase of the Restore Illinois reopening plan,” the State of Illinois Coronavirus Response website said.

“This week it’s a bridge, tomorrow it's a ferry, maybe next week it could be another flight to Florida for his family,” Bailey, in a statement about the bridge phase, said. “The Governor has spent the last year running the state alone through executive orders. It's time for that to end and for Illinois to reopen.”

Bailey, in particular, said in the YouTube interview that public school students’ education and mental health are being destroyed through coronavirus mitigations.

“Many times, the local school board actually holds the authority to do what they need to do and open if they so desire,” Bailey said in the interview.

Bailey, who according to Ballotpedia served on the North Clay school board for 17 years, said Illinois residents should run for spots on their school boards.

“Here in Illinois, our failed governor continues to threaten and tell many of the schools that ‘Well, you might be sued,’… ‘There’s going to be big trouble,’ ‘You might lose funding,’ and that’s nonsense,” Bailey said in the interview. “The mental health and the well-being of our children, their futures, they’re being destroyed.” 

Over 1.3 million of the nearly 2 million students in Illinois schools are participating in blended remote learning because of COVID-19, the Illinois State Board of Education’s coronavirus dashboard said as of March 22.

A joint guidance document called “Revised Public Health Guidance for Schools” that the ISBE and Illinois Department of Public Health released “supports the return to in-person instruction as soon as practicable in each community,” the ISBE’s March 9 Facebook post said.