North Cook News

Patrick Brouillette, Republican candidate for Illinois state representative for House District 44, recently spoke via email to LGIS and shared his views on COVID-19-related school closures.

Unicef reported in October that  government-mandated lock downs and school closures negatively impacted children. The report found closures lead to an increase in fear, stress, anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, loss of learning, and poor physical activity and sleeping habits. To B

Brouillette states that his thinks schools should have never been closed. 

“The remote ‘learning' fiasco was reprehensible and the effects from that period in time will be felt for decades to come," Brouillete wrote in his email. "Our school system was already broken; the shutdowns just further exploited the disaster that the public school system really is.” 

Total enrollment in Pre-K-12 schools in Illinois declined by 3.6%, or roughly 70,000 students, during the 2020-2021 school year, according to Capitol News Illinois.

“Chronic absenteeism increased during that school year, with 22.8% of all Illinois students missing 10% or more of all school days,” ISBE’s Research and Evaluation Officer Brenda Dixon said, according to Capitol News Illinois. 

“We know from national studies from the (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) that school districts serving primarily Black and Hispanic students provided the least access to in-person learning last year," Dixon said. "We suspect that less access to in-person learning contributed to lower engagement among Black and Hispanic students.”  

The number of students who exhibited grade level competence in math and English language arts decreased, with 17.8% fewer students demonstrating proficiency in math and 16.6% fewer students demonstrating proficiency in English, according to Capitol News Illinois. 

“The feedback that I have gotten is that most parents really saw what their kids were learning and they were shocked,” Brouillette said in his statement. 

“The mere lack of education was enough," he wrote. "Combined with the woke ideology and propaganda being pushed on them, it was the last straw for many. A large number of families have chosen home schooling due to the schools' not being able to provide the service of educating their children properly."

Brouillette said he thinks school closures should be determined by parents since they are in charge of their children and the education they receive. 

In March, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) announced a $17 million grant to establish a supplemental learning program for students impacted by learning loss due to school closures, according to the ISBE news release. The program will be geared  specifically toward low-income students.  

Illinois Policy reports that school districts that offered more in-person learning saw smaller declines in enrollment than schools that used mostly remote learning.