I am a voting constituent from your district and an education employee. I am also a member of the Illinois Education Association. We’re calling on you to support HB2789 to protect our students and our schools by:

• Requiring the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois State Board of Education to establish clear metrics and safety protocols.
• Requiring local health departments to enforce those metrics and protocols in order to keep students and all those who work in schools safe.

If we can pass these things, it will allow school buildings that have closed to safely re-open and remain open, or to go remote when conditions are unsafe. It will also allow the business community to thrive, setting Illinois back on a stable path toward economic recovery.

We have tried everything we can as a union to get some sort of enforcement of state safety standards – in regard to personal protective measures or community spread – but no one agency will take responsibility. This has wreaked havoc on this past school year.

We need our elected lawmakers to pass measures that will keep students, education employees and schools safe. It is imperative to help our state move forward.

Please help us establish safe schools for all of Illinois. Please be our partners in this work. There is nothing we want more than to have our students in our classrooms and to keep them there, but only if it’s safe.