District 89 Board To Consider COVID-19 Mitigation Plan Changes

GLEN ELLYN, IL — The Community Consolidated School District 89 Board of Education will hold an emergency meeting on Saturday morning to consider changing the district’s COVID-19 mitigation plan, including making masks optional for students rather than required.

The meeting, which will take place at 9 a.m. at Glen Crest Middle School, comes a day after a downstate appellate court dismissed Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s appeal of a temporary restraining order regarding masks being required in public schools. Pritzker expressed disappointment with Friday’s decision and said he will ask the Illinois State Supreme Court to consider putting his mask mandate back into effect after Friday’s decision.

The temporary restraining order, issued earlier this month, gives school districts the option of keeping their own COVID-19 mitigation plans in place. District 89 officials said this week that the board will consider removing some mitigation strategies, including making masks optional rather than required.

On Saturday, the District 89 board is scheduled to review an updated layered mitigation plan that is responsive to conditions in school and the community the district said. The district said that as of Feb. 10, the district’s student population that experienced an absence due to a COVID-19 reason dropped to 0.3 percent.

The district experienced its highest rate of absenteeism in the second week of January, district officials said, citing 10 percent of students that missed school time because of a COVID-19 related issue.

Parents were notified of the layered mitigation plan on Thursday, one district parent told Patch on Friday. A rally, protesting the current mask policy, is scheduled to take place at 8 a.m. in front of Glen Crest Middle School, the site of Saturday’s board meeting.

The rally is being held in support of parental choice, the district parent said. The parent said that parents have asked district officials for a game plan for months. The parent said that the group of concerned parents will not allow healthy kids to be masked and said that children have been “damaged” because of the mask policy, the parent wrote in an email.

District officials said the meeting will be live-streamed and that a link to the meeting will be provided before the scheduled start. The meeting is open to the public and will include a public comment session in which each parent or resident will be limited to three minutes for comment.

Masks will be required for everyone who attends the meeting, the district said. The board may recess or move to an online format if audience members do not follow mitigation practices, including wearing a mask that covers their nose and mouth, the district announced.