Dupage Policy Journal

Lombard School District 44, which includes eight schools and 3,020 students, is now mask-optional.

The announcement came Saturday in an email to parents by District Superintendent Ted Stec, in response to a Sangamon County court ruling late Friday that declared Gov. J.B. Pritzker's school student mask requirement "null and void."

"Essentially (Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow) who is presiding over the litigation issued a temporary restraining order... that halts enforcement of the Governor's executive order on masking, vaccinating, testing and quarantining for close contacts... without proper due process," Stec wrote. "This means that as of today, (mask wearing) can only be recommended and not required for District 44 students and staff."

"While we do recommend the continued use of mask wearing, under the current court order, we have no ability to enforce or require such practice," he wrote. "Please understand that just as we were previously bound by state mandates to require mask wearing on school grounds, we are bound by this judge's ruling."

In a 30-page ruling Friday night, Grischow declared Pritzker's blanket state emergency school rules on masks and tests through the Illinois Department of Public Health "null and void." She said the governor and his agencies have been mandating rules upon students illegally.

“Statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed through the issuance of Executive Orders and Emergency Rules … This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain," she wrote.

Also on Saturday, Timothy Christian Schools in Elmhurst, Township High School District 214 and  Arlington Heights School District 25 announced they would be mask-optional. 

The schools superintendent of the Chicago Archdiocese, however, said all Catholic schools in North and Northwest Cook County will still require masks as he will not recognize Judge Grischow's order, while the Joliet Diocese, which governs Catholic schools in DuPage County, signaled he would also refuse to follow the court.

"Does that Face Mask Really Protect You," a 2010 research article by Dr. Larry E. Bowen of the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Ala., fit various types of masks on a mannequin to study their effectiveness, found that wearing surgical, bandana and dust masks offer "very little protection" and concluded that "wearing these face masks may produce a false sense of protection."

Stec, 45, of Elmhurst, was named Lombard District 44 Superintendent in 2017. A 1994 graduate of Lyons Township High School who played college football at Miami of Ohio, he previously served as assistant superintendent of District 44 for four years and as assistant superintendent in Burbank School District 111 in the southwest suburbs. 

District 44 schools include Glenn Westlake Middle School, Butterfield, Madison, Manor Hill, Park View, Pleasant Lane and William Hammerschmidt Elementary Schools and the John Schroder Early Childhood Center, all in Lombard.