Chambana Sun

State Rep. Thomas Bennett (R-Gibson City) has introduced a bill that would allow school districts to use remote learning days instead of emergency days.

“That’s what it’s about,” Bennett told members of the House Elementary & Secondary Education: Administration, Licensing & Charter School Committee of House Bill 3573 during a recent committee hearing; he added that supporters of the measure were there to answer any questions about it.

Slated to go into effect on July 1, 2021, HB 3573 also stipulates that the number of emergency days “used in a school year may not exceed the number of emergency days provided for in the school calendar and the district superintendent must approve a remote learning plan for the district before the district may utilize a remote learning day.”

The measure establishes that the plan put into place must address the term of approval, and how the plan must be posted and “allows statutory and regulatory curricular mandates and offerings to be administered via remote learning.”

A member of the House’s Elementary & Secondary Education committee, Bennett has served in the 106th District since 2015, winning his last race in November 2020 by running unopposed.

His 106th District includes all or parts of Ford, Vermilion, Iroquois, Livingston, and Woodford counties, along such towns as Pontiac, Watseka, Eureka, Dwight, Hoopeston, Gibson City, Paxton, Potomac, El Paso, Armstrong, Saunemin, Piper City, Kempton, Cullom, Milford, Minonk, Onarga, Cissna Park, Buckley, Loda, Melvin, Sibley, Chatsworth, Elliott, Flanagan, Gilman, Donovan, Roanoke, Benson, El Paso, Congerville, Thawville, Rossville, Secor and Goodfield.