Chambana Sun

State Rep. Brad Holbrook (R-Shelbyville) said local school boards and parents, not the state, should have the power to decide whether schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We don’t need bureaucrats sitting in an office somewhere making these decisions," the legislator told Chambana Sun. "We need local school boards working with parents to decide these policies ... We also knew that at-home learning was causing problems. I think what has been so frustrating about school closures and the school masking issue is the lack of explanation for some of the policies put in place and the lack of empathy for the real concerns parents had about those policies – a lack of empathy that still exists today."

Holbrook believes school mask mandates were disruptive as well.

"Wearing a mask all day long is not normal for most adults," he said. "It certainly is not normal for kids. Our kids need structure. They need routine and they need in-person learning. All of this was disrupted without any real data to support the need to take these drastic steps. Moving forward, we must take a different approach and work with parents instead of working against them."

A Unicef report from October 2021 found that government-mandated lockdowns and school closures negatively impacted children, leading to more fear, stress, anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, loss of learning, and poor physical activity and sleeping habits.

Total enrollment in pre-K-12 schools in Illinois declined by 3.6%, or roughly 70,000 students, during the 2020-2021 school year, according to Capitol News Illinois. Chronic absenteeism increased during that school year, with 22.8% of all Illinois students missing 10% or more of all school days.

"We know from national studies from the (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) that school districts serving primarily Black and Hispanic students provided the least access to in-person learning last year," Brenda Dixon, research and evaluation officer for the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), said. "We suspect that less access to in-person learning contributed to lower engagement among Black and Hispanic students."

The number of students who exhibited grade-level competence in math and English/language arts decreased, Capitol News Illinois reported. Nearly 18% fewer students met grade-level standards in math and 16.6% fewer students demonstrated proficiency in English.    

School districts that offered more in-person learning saw smaller declines in enrollment than schools that used mostly remote learning, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.     

The ISBE revealed a $17 million grant in March, a news release from the agency said. The funding is intended to establish a supplemental learning program for students impacted by learning loss due to school closures during the pandemic. The program will be geared specifically toward low-income students.