The Danville District 118 School Board will be meeting at 7 AM Tuesday, February 22nd to vote on the tabled issue of removing mask mandates for students and teachers in the district. The meeting will actually begin at 6:30 AM with a closed session, and then resume with open session at 7 AM, at the Dr. David L Fields Administrative Service Center at 110 East Williams Street.
Attorney Bethany Hager has stated that despite the early time on Tuesday, numerous parents and teachers plan at attend the meeting.
District 118 Board president Dr. Randall Ashton has stated that the district’s legal advisors said the board could not have a meeting on Monday due to the President’s Day holiday. Therefore, the decision was made to have the meeting before school began on Tuesday so that students, parents, and teachers would know how to handle the mask issue at the start of the school day.
ORIGINAL STORY:
An appeals court has denied Governor Pritzker’s appeal of the Sangamon County Circuit Court’s ruling that the governor’s mask and exclusion policy is null and void.
Therefore, after the Danville District 118 Board voted Wednesday to table a motion put forth by Board Member Shannon Schroeder to eliminate the mask mandate for District 118 students and teachers until a decision is made on the governor’s appeal, the question is now: How quickly can District 118 have a special board meeting to make that vote?
Attorney Bethany Hager, who represents numerous parties fighting the governor’s executive orders, is hoping, very soon. And, she says, so are a lot of District 118 parents.
AUDIO: They are definitely making their wishes known; to the school board, to the district. I know there’s lots of e-mails going toward board members and to Dr. Geddis. Anyone in the administration that people can send an e-mail to, they are sending those e-mails and saying, “Please, please, have this emergency board meeting that you told us would be happening, please go ahead and have it, and make a decision one way or the other. Give the parents and teachers some resolution on this.”
It was earlier in the week that JCAR, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, took action against the governor’s executive orders. Hager says, JCAR is a committee made up of state legislators, and studying issues like this is their job.
AUDIO: They’re a committee in the General Assembly. They review the Illinois Administrative Code and changes to that code. They will actually implement rules there when it’s needed; or review, as we saw this week, emergency rule making that’s submitted by one of the executive agencies.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the District 118 Board is March 16th, which makes a special meeting date very likely.
The Office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued a statement expressing disappointment with the Appellate Court’s action:
https://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/pressroom/2022_02/20220218.html
