An Illinois judge has restored the status of a private suburban Christian school whose recognition was recently revoked by the State Board of Education for refusing to follow Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s school mask mandate.
Kendall County Judge Stephen Krentz earlier this week ordered the Illinois State Board of Education to temporarily reinstate Parkview Christian Academy in Yorkville, which is among a slate of private schools across Illinois that have recently lost their status for flouting the governor’s executive order.
ISBE Superintendent Carmen Ayala has warned that failing to comply with the state’s mask mandate will result in the removal of a private school’s “status as a recognized nonpublic school, effective immediately.”
The court ruling, which granted Parkview a temporary restraining order while the lawsuit continues, was immediately applauded by Republican members of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, which has described the revocations without a hearing or probationary period as “overreach.”
“Public schools are placed on probation and are given a defined timeline to respond, yet nonpublic schools are not given that same consideration,” Republican Sen. John Curran of Downers Grove said in a Friday statement.
“This is not about masks; it is about process. We need to ensure that all schools and school children are treated equally and fairly, and that school recognition outcomes are not dependent upon what school a child attends,” Curran said.
Parkview was stripped of its recognition on the same day it received ISBE’s notification of noncompliance with Pritzker’s mask mandate, Curran said.
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“You cannot hold nonpublic schools to a different standard than public schools — that’s just simply not fair to those students,” Republican Sen. Donald DeWitte of St. Charles said in a Friday statement.
Pritzker spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh said the Kendall County ruling will not affect the way ISBE approaches enforcement of the mandate, saying “there is no reason for nonpublic or public schools to ignore the commonsense public health guidelines recommended by the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and medical professionals.”
The board “has followed the disciplinary process laid out in rule for both private and public schools,” she said in a statement. “Compliance with the state’s mask mandate helps keep students and teachers safe, aids in the reduction of community transmission of COVID-19, and positions schools — both nonpublic and public — to avoid the consequences of failing to adhere to public health requirements.”
ISBE officials were not immediately available for comment Friday.
Last month, ISBE officials said public school districts that lose recognition forfeit access to state funding and the ability to participate in Illinois High School Association and Illinois Elementary School Association-sanctioned sports.
Officials said the board has regulatory authority to reduce the recognition status of any school district exhibiting “deficiencies that present a health hazard or a danger to students or staff.”
Public school districts declining to follow the mask mandate are first put on probation, and then asked to schedule a conference to discuss compliance issues, with the district required to submit a plan within 60 days.
If no plan is submitted or approved, ISBE may change the status of the district, or of the affected schools, to “nonrecognized,” they said.
Private schools follow a different regulatory process that allows the state to immediately change a school’s status to nonrecognized without a probationary period “in instances in which the State Superintendent determines there is an emergency situation present at a school,” officials said.
In his ruling, Krentz took aim at the separate standards, saying the “guidelines and procedures for recognizing nonpublic schools may necessarily be different than the guidelines for recognizing public schools, but they may not be more burdensome.”
“Parkview has raised a fair question in this regard,” he wrote.
baiduhai’s Dan Petrella and Tracy Swartz contributed.
Twitter @kcullotta