West Chicago Elementary School District 33 is in the crosshairs of state senate candidate Heather Brown, who is alleging the school district in engaging in civil rights abuses of students.
Brown, a candidate for the 25th State Senate District, said she never thought she’d see the return of segregation in public schools.
“(West Chicago Elementary School District 33) elementary schools have proceeded with knowingly discriminatory practices against children,” Brown told DuPage Policy Journal.
Brown noted the school system is segregating maskless students counter to a downstate judge’s ruling against mandates.
In a 30-page ruling Friday night, Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow declared Pritzker's blanket state emergency school rules on masks and tests through the Illinois Department of Public Health "null and void." She said the governor and his agencies have been mandating rules upon students illegally.
“Statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed through the issuance of Executive Orders and Emergency Rules … This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain," she wrote.
Brown noted the judge said maskless students should not be treated differently.
“The judge stated that it is unlawful for the governor IDPH (Illinois Department of Public Health) and ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education) and school districts to discriminate against any child who opted out of testing or wearing a mask,” she said.
Brown said the treatment is poor timing for school officials.
“This coming in the middle of Black History Month, I heard just this morning that children were being segregated by choosing not to wear a mask. What are they teaching our children this month?” Brown said.
Brown noted the children who are going to school maskless today are like the civil rights heroes of the past.
“These children will be remembered in the future of fighting for their freedoms against segregation during Black History Month?” she said.
The mask mandate was overruled by a downstate judge on Friday.
Brown noted the treatment students received ran counter to the judge’s order.
“The verbiage the judge used was for all of the school districts in Illinois,” she said.
Brown suggested parents keep their children in schools regardless of what the school system says when it comes to quarantine.
She noted the law dealing with criminal quarantines is in favor of the general citizen.
“The Illinois Department of Health would then have to make the decision to proceed at this point for criminal proceedings to have an emergency order of quarantine, which can only last 48 hours," she said. "But until they issue that order, your child is allowed back to school."
Brown is challenging State Sen. Karina Villa (D-West Chicago).
The 25th State Senate District is comprised of Cook, DuPage, Kane and Kendall counties and includes the cities of Aurora, Batavia, Elgin, Geneva, Naperville, Plano, St. Charles, Warrenville, West Chicago and Yorkville.
The issue arose as a growing number of parents began sending their children to school without masks, regardless of whether or not their school was covered by the ruling.
Many schools like West Chicago 33 have moved to herding maskless kids. Some of those crowd have grown so large they’ve been moved into auditoriums where they are secluded. On Monday at Hinsdale Central High School, tape was released from students showing hundreds of maskless pupils gathered together.
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