Will County Gazette

Michelle Smith, District 97 GOP candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives, recently did an interview with the Will County Gazette about pandemic-related school closures.

According to an October 2021 UNICEF report, government-mandated lockdowns and school closures have negatively impacted children. The report found that the closures led to an increase in fear, stress, anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, loss of learning, poor physical activity and sleeping habits. To Smith, school closures became unnecessary after time went on and the world began to understand more clearly what we were dealing with.

"In the beginning, we did not know anything about COVID-19," Smith told the Will County Gazette. "We are more informed than we were before, and there is no reason our schools should be closed."

Total enrollment in Pre-K-12 schools in Illinois declined by 3.6% -- or roughly 70,000 students -- during the 2020-2021 school year, according to Capitol News Illinois.

“Chronic absenteeism increased during that school year, with 22.8% of all Illinois students missing 10% or more of all school days,” Illinois State Board of Education's Research and Evaluation Officer Brenda Dixon said, according to Capitol News Illinois. “We know from national studies from the (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) that school districts serving primarily black and Hispanic students provided the least access to in-person learning last year. We suspect that less access to in-person learning contributed to lower engagement among black and Hispanic students.”

The number of students who exhibited grade-level competence in math and English language arts decreased, with 17.8% fewer students demonstrating proficiency in math and 16.6% fewer students demonstrating proficiency in English, according to Capitol News Illinois. 

"Our community has seen a rise in drug use, suicide and mental health issues due to the isolation caused by school closures," Smith said. "This is new territory for all of us. We don't know the long-term effects this had on our students." Smith believes school closures and other policies should be determined at the local level and that "what works in one district may not work in another."

In March, the Illinois State Board of Education announced a $17 million grant to establish a supplemental learning program for students impacted by learning loss due to school closures. The program will be geared specifically towards low-income students.

Illinois Policy reports that school districts that offered more in-person learning saw smaller declines in enrollment than schools that focused mostly on remote learning.