Centralia High School Superintendent Chuck Lane says the state has modified back to school guidelines to allow more local control. That is what Lane and a group of Superintendent’s were seeking in an e-mail campaign to the Governor, Illinois State Board of Education, and Illinois Department of Public Health.
“You know we all wanted the same thing, be it the IDPH, the Governor’s Office, and the school districts, we all wanted the kids to be in school 5 days a week and to be safe. It’s just our group that having a one size fits all strategy dictated wasn’t going to be appropriate here so we asked for some leeway and they gave it to us. It’s a good way for all districts to tailor to whatever they need. If you want to wear a mask you can or you don’t have to it’s up to each individual school district.”
Lane says schools will have to be observant of local conditions in order to stay on top of COVID-19.
“We are going to continue to monitor things like we have done for the past 2 years basically and if things get worse and have an outbreak then ya we might have to have everyone wear a mask again and that is what we are prepared to do. It’s just that when we are not at that stage we felt like we should be able to have more leeway.”
Lane says they will wait to closer to the start of school for setting COVID-19 guidelines as they watch how the pandemic plays out. Lane says the e-mail campaign to the state will continue, but with a little different message.
The Centralia City Grade School District and Odin School District have both agreed to send the e-mails seeking more local control at their school board meetings held this week.
