Kane County Reporter

State Sen. Don DeWitte (R-West Dundee) wants to set the record straight on what he thinks the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules’ (JCAR) role needs to be in the ongoing masking mandate.

“To begin with, I want to reiterate that as being members of this bipartisan and bicameral committee on rules, I believe it’s our job to oversee the rule-making process by state agencies, making sure they abide by the original intent of the legislation or in this case what appears to be a mandate handed down by the administration,” DeWitte said at a recent JCAR meeting. “It is important to get into the record that just because we’re questioning ISBE’s authority to take financially punitive steps against school districts that choose to exercise local control with regard to the mask issue, it does not mean we do not recognize the benefit that masks provide.”

JCAR members are now formally encouraging ISBE officials to place all policy and guidance in administrative rule, and recommending the agency provide an update to the committee over the next month. In addition, members are calling for ISBE to clarify the process for penalizing districts for defying the mask mandate recently reimposed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

While DeWitte insists he personally has no issue with masking, has gotten the vaccination himself and held clinics in his district encouraging others to do so, he said he still has ongoing concerns about government overreach.

“That is the purpose of our questions today,” he said. “As one member of JCAR, it is incumbent upon us to ask questions and ensure the government is acting within its authority and in line with state statute. The focus of our questioning today centers around this primary issue.”

Though DeWitte said he’d like to see the statute that grants ISBE the authority to take the action that it has, he said he doesn’t expect to.

“To the best of my knowledge, I don’t believe that authority exists,” he said. “When a house representative files legislation after the fact that does give ISBE that authority. In my view it is a veiled admission that perhaps ISBE stepped beyond its authority.”

To date, four public schools and nine private schools across the state have been penalized for not complying with the governor’s dictum, with the private schools having been stripped of recognition status that could bring a lack of government funding and being declared ineligible for ISHA sanctioned sporting competition.

The four public schools have been placed on probation.