Illinois Valley Times

Illinois State Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) recently voiced her concerns on the state's school mask mandates at the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) hearing on the issue.

Rezin opposes the state's school mask mandates, and she recently questioned the the Illinois State Board of Education's (ISBE) authority to revoke a school's recognition status and withhold state funding for defying state-imposed mask mandates.

"During our JCAR hearing, I voiced my serious concerns with the ISBE continuous overreach of authority when it comes to the governor's mask mandates in schools, particularly in how they have treated nonpublic schools differently and denying them their basic right of due process," Rezin wrote in a Sept. 14 tweet. 

"After some deliberation, the members of JCAR encouraged ISBE to place all policy and guidance in rule and recommended ISBE provide an update to the committee within 30 days," Rezin added.

JCAR's motion also acknowledged that policy outside of the existing rulemaking process may exist and received unanimous support by the bipartisan panel.

Rockford Sun reported that there are currently 47 Illinois districts at risk of having state funding cut off for defying Gov. J.B. Pritzker's school mask mandate.

“It comes as no surprise that ISBE’s decision to revoke school recognition status and withhold state funding from schools that do not follow the mask mandate has been met with legal challenges,” Illinois State Sen. John Curran (R-Downers Grove) said, according to KHQA. “There is no clear understanding of the steps, timeframes, and due process that is involved between when a school is notified of non-compliance with the mandate and when recognition status is revoked. The lack of process is leading to unjust outcomes and rightful outrage amongst parents.”

A 2020 study by the University of Illinois at Chicago found that "cloth masks and face coverings are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles ... and offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation," according to Rockford Sun.

Another study, by the Center for Biosecurity Disease in 2006, found that “the ordinary surgical mask does little to prevent inhalation of small droplets of influenza virus (because) the pores in the mask become blocked by moisture from breathing, and the airstream simply diverts around the mask.”