The Illinois General Assembly has not met since early March, but they are returning to Springfield on May 20th to pass a state budget for the coming fiscal year.

The economic impact of the pandemic on our state's finances will be grim.

Send your state representative and state senator a note to remind them that public schools are playing an essential role in helping families cope with the current crisis.

In order to continue this role into the recovery—they need an increase in funding, not cuts. Achieving adequacy in a pandemic requires more funding to provide a safe and healthy environment for our children.

Want more background reading?

• Bloomberg "Don't Forsake Poor Schoolchildren, Even in a Pandemic"
• Washington Post "Why kids shouldn’t be forced to sit at desks all day when schools reopen"
• Washington Post: "A proposal for what post-coronavirus schools should do (instead of what they used to do)" by education researchers and play advocates, Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle
• Sun-Times op-ed: A Chicago principal asks: ‘What is school without a school?’
• NPR: 9 Ways Schools Will Look Different When (And If) They Reopen