Why COVID-19 preventative measures for school children have a community divided
HUNTLEY – At the Aug. 5 Committee of the Whole meeting, Huntley Community School District 158 (D158) superintendent Scott Rowe had presented results of a survey the district had requested families to complete regarding the masking of children.
Survey results concluded that the majority of parents with students at the elementary level were either comfortable with masking or uncomfortable.
“There was very little wiggle room in the middle and it really did hover at that 50/50 range. It told us just where we are in the community, is divided. A little bit of a difference at the secondary level. There’s more comfort in terms of the option of masks,” Rowe said.
The district’s decision to uphold Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s universal mask mandate as well as continue to require elementary school students to wear masks after the mandate is lifted led a few parents to pull their children out of D158 and enroll them into private schools or homeschool.
Dana Dalton-Wiley, a parent of two students attending D158 schools, didn’t pull her kids out of the district but feels that parents should have the choice to make decisions for their children’s health.
“It’s been very difficult now to have kids mask back up again after they basically spent the last three months without masks in a variety of different settings,” Dalton-Wiley said.
Dalton-Wiley is also a member of a Facebook group that calls itself the D158 Parent Union.
The group has faced some backlash for their seemingly abrasive approach when voicing their opinions at D158 Board of Education meetings.
She explained the group was initially started around this time last year, by parents looking to collect information on when students would return to full-time in-person learning.
“Once that happened, I guess in February of this year, then the focus of the group changed because the kids were back in school and so we really wanted to allow parents to have a little bit more of a voice in the district other than just being able to make public comments at the board meetings,” Dalton-Wiley said.
Other members of the community are quick to argue that the ideas presented by the D158 Parent Union regarding making preventative COVID-19 strategies optional, do not align with the views of the silent majority, as explained by Huntley resident and activist Peter Atterberg.
Atterberg decided to become a voice for parents in approval of the district’s COVID-19 measures because he felt that the other side of the argument was spreading misinformation.
“I decided for the safety of all the kids everywhere, in local District 158 and also across the nation that we needed a sane and passionate voice to represent the other side. I know that we are the majority people that want masks for kids and the board knows that…It was important that in a peaceful and passionate way, [the D158 Parent Union] be opposed,” Atterberg said.
Dalton-Wiley believes that there is no majority for either side of the argument, instead, she said, “we’re representing people’s voices that have not had a chance to be heard.”
Dalton-Wiley stated that both of her children are vaccinated against COVID-19, however, she stated that she will not be sharing that information with the district due to a previous mishap with her son’s health records at D158. She also explained that she is opting her kids out of participating in the COVID-19 Shield saliva testing.
Other members of the D158 Parent Union group, like Laura Murray, took a more drastic approach.
She told My Huntley News, that she has pulled her children from D158’s Conley Elementary and Heineman Middle School, and enrolled them into private school.
While Murray did not wish to provide comment, it was announced that on Aug. 9, she and another parent Christine Polheber had filed a lawsuit against Pritzker in the McHenry County Circuit Court.
Murray and Polheber are being represented by attorney Lance Ziebell from the Schaumburg-based law firm Lavelle Law.
As of Aug. 12, the case at the McHenry County Circuit Court has been closed due to McHenry County Judge Michael Chmiel granting a motion by Pritzker’s attorneys to move the case to Sangamon County.
Dalton-Wiley hopes that teachers are not overwhelmed with maintaining the district’s mask policies.
“I hate to see teachers being the mask police because I think they have a lot more to do this year than have to watch kids with masks and I hope that they’re respected for trying to do the jobs that they have to do…It’s a very difficult situation for everybody. Hopefully we can make the best of it this year,” she said.
D158 states that they respect a parent’s right to make decisions for their children, though they are standing firm when it comes to masking.
Students not complying with the district’s mask policy will be given a few warnings with opportunities to correct their actions. However, after multiple mask refusals, district staff will take appropriate disciplinary actions, according to the D158 masking protocols.
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) warned schools that not complying with Pritzker’s masking mandate could result in a school losing their state funding.
