McHenry Times

State Sen. Donald DeWitte (R-St. Charles) and other Republicans in the legislature have questioned whether the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has the authority to reprimand school districts by threatening to withhold state funding for not complying with Gov. J.B. Pritzker's (D-IL) mask mandate. 

DeWitte and other members of the legislature's Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) spoke with ISBE representatives about their concerns at a hearing on Sept. 14. 

"JCAR has oversight and responsibilities," DeWitte wrote in a post on his Facebook page. "It is our job to protect the public from arbitrary agency enforcement of guidance and policy."

Kristen Kennedy, ISBE's deputy legal officer, told lawmakers the agency didn't plan on going through JCAR's process of enacting rules and instead would be using the authority granted in a court ruling to ISBE, according to a press release on DeWitte's website. 

"Through our questioning and Ms. Kennedy's testimony, it became clear to me that ISBE had promulgated policy outside of rule," DeWitte said in the release. "ISBE had an obligation to take guidance handed down by the Governor and the Department of Health, and use JCAR's rulemaking process to create clear steps for enforcement. There is a big difference between guidance and rules or policy, and ISBE can't just arbitrarily determine how it will enforce mandates."

Members of JCAR asked ISBE to "place all policy and guidance in administrative rule" and give the committee an update within 30 days.

"I don't believe it's a coincidence that the 30-day extension brings us to when the legislature will reconvene," state Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) said in the release. "We will have to see if ISBE brings us rules, or if they will ask the legislature to take up the issue legislatively."

Forty-seven districts originally faced discipline for defying Gov. Pritzker's school mask mandate, according to the Rockford Sun.

The same article addressed a commentary by two University of Illinois at Chicago professors who found fabric masks "are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmissions."

Another study conducted by the Center for Biosecurity Disease found that a typical surgical mask "does little to prevent" people from inhaling droplets of the flu, the Rockford Sun reported.