Organized parent groups in Illinois are suing school boards, the state board of education and the Governor to remove mask mandates and other safety measures from the schools. They want their children to be unprotected from the coronavirus. They don’t want the pandemic to end. This is the latest from Illinois Families for Public Schools. The overwhelming majority of lawsuits against public health mandates have been turned down by the courts. Let’s hope this one loses too.
Action alert: Sign this petition to oppose lifting the mask mandate and other covid safety measures in IL schools!
Last week, a lawsuit was filed against 145 school districts including Chicago Public Schools, Governor Pritzker and ISBE by groups of parents at these districts to lift the mask mandate and other covid safety measures in the schools. Each group of parents gave Attorney Tom Devore $5000 totalling $725K donated to make our schools and communities unsafe.
Parents in Algonquin launched a petition to say these parents do not represent them and they do not want the mask mandate and other safety measures lifted at their schools. They got over 1200 signatures over the weekend and are asking for support in signing and sharing with other parents and community members who want schools to remain safe.
Please sign and share this petition with other parents and community members who actually want this pandemic to end. Over 6.2 million children have tested positive for covid since the pandemic started and 1.1 million just in the first six-weeks of this school year.
As much as we’d like this pandemic to be over, it’s simply not, and no amount of covid-denying magical thinking will change that. The vaccine will be available for school-aged children 5-11 very soon, so let’s keep our schools open safely now.
Here’s another recent relevant article on the topic of school board culture wars happening around the country:
WBEZ: What it’s like to be on the front lines of the school board culture war
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Are these Illinois parents NUTS? Or are they getting Rubles from Russia?
The Dept. of Education is suing Florida over its refusal to pay superintendents that issued a mask mandate in their districts. These culture wars continue to be fought in the streets, schools and the courts.
In the past decade, a great deal of money was seen pouring into school board elections, money at levels far exceeding what was the norm. At the time I thought it was just a board-packing effort on the part of charter school and voucher advocates, but maybe the donors were looking forward to culturally divisive opportunities such as this. Gee, is one of our political parties waging a cultural war on the other?
and is one party always a few hundred miles behind saying “huh?”
It would be nice if someone could investigate the sources of these “groups'” $5k donations. There are either 145 of them, or, as I suspect, one, two, or three sources somehow funneling money to them. For example, grants to local “groups” who in turn donate to the cause.
COVID-19 surpasses 1918 flu as deadliest pandemic in U.S. history
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/covid-19-is-now-the-deadliest-pandemic-in-us-history
Thanks for the link!
“They want their children to be unprotected from the coronavirus.”
Yet another reminder that children are at extremely low risk of serious illness from Covid-19.
Tell that to the hundreds of dead children!
Duene,
About 2,000 children were killed in car accidents in 2016 alone (see https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsr1804754). What steps do you think we should take to eliminate thousands of dead children?
Sorry TE, I don’t bite on rotten bait. I’m not a bottom feeder.
Duane, you nailed it. He’s always trolling, looking for someone to take the bait.
“They want their children to be unprotected from the coronavirus.”
Yet another reminder that children are at extremely low risk of serious illness from Covid-19.
Just a reminder that posting yet another reminder of yet another reminder in the same thread is not likely to have any more effect than posting yet another reminder just once.
It can never compete with posting the same lie incessantly.
Says the fellow who repeatedly claimed/implied “positivity rates” (eg. In schools) that were below (in some cases well below) the false negative rate of even the most accurate COVID test (PCR) after being made aware of the scientific uncertainty issue.
Claiming a “bare” result without the associated uncertainty is never scientifically legitimate (not even when scientists do it), but it is simply a lie when it is knowingly done in service of bolstering a claim that the result is “better” (eg, infection rate in schools is lower) than can actually legitimately be claimed (taking the uncertainty into account)
The term “Parent Groups” is misleading, even if they are parents. Dear God, I hope not.
Anyone fighting safety measures meant to protect the public from a dangerous virus that has infected hundreds of millions, killed tens of millions, and injured one in four with Long COVID, are Trumpists and do not deserve to be called a parent group.
They should be called what they are: Deplorable Trumpists that do not deserve to be parents of any kind.
Instead, they are want-to-be murderers.
You are right, Lloyd. What kind of parent wants their child unprotected from a deadly disease?
May I point out the parents who are itching-bay at school board meetings around the nation? Sadly, I know of and have spoken to very many parents are quite stupid, deluded, ideological, or all of the above when it comes to the safety of their children. When they say children are at a very low risk, I “love” the stuttering responses when I respond with the question, “What if your child is one who falls outside of ‘very low risk’ and either gets it or infects a vulnerable family member?” “Love” in a frustrated, angry sense, that is.
What percentage of these parents refuse required measles, rubella, mumps, and other vaccines? What percentage of their boomer grandparents lined up for the polio vaccine?
Hypocrites?
Don’t believe this is real?
Figure it’s “just the flu?”
They can’t deny the statistics – so at minimum you’d think they wouldn’t want their kids to hospitalize grandpa and their teachers.
Where is the AMA and thousands of pediatricians full page ads and bill boards stating get the damn vaccine?
The 359-page complaint is laughable. These so-called lawyers couldn’t even spell the governor’s last name correctly, listing “Pritdisker” instead of “Pritzker” (on page 46, which gives you some idea how long it took to list all the plaintiffs and school districts that are being sued). Wanna know where your tax dollars go? Districts have to respond to this complaint. So basically we have a bunch of illiterate hacks representing parents who think protecting public safety is a violation of their constitutional rights. Next they will complain that school districts spend too much of their tax dollars on costs that don’t benefit our kids’ education. What hypocrites!! There are no words for this any more. Get vaccinated if you aren’t already (though I suspect I’m preaching to the choir), and please convince your friends to get vaccinated.