Kendall County Times

Jed Davis, Republican nominee for Illinois State Representative, District 75, is also school board president of Parkview Christian Academy in Yorkville.

The school was closed for COVID-19 only during the spring of 2020, Davis said.

"We were without significant incident during the past two school years, proving schools may remain open with the proper circumstance and leadership," he told the Kendall County Times.

Jed Davis | Provided by Candidate

School families were supportive of the less-stringent policy the private school took toward pandemic shutdowns, Davis said.

"Families were thrilled about our approach and our enrollment is booming," he said. "We provided normalcy during abnormal times. Also, let’s keep in mind, we weren’t alone. Yorkville Community Unit School District 115 also never closed, along with several surrounding public schools. Let’s allow our boots-on-the-ground officials to navigate local conditions and policies, not a one-size-fits-all mentality from an executive hundreds of miles away.

A UNICEF report from October 2021 found that government-mandated lockdowns and school closures negatively impacted children, leading to more fear, stress, anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, loss of learning, poor physical activity and sleeping habits.    

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.

“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,” Brenda Dixon, Illinois State Board of Education's research and evaluation officer, told Capitol News Illinois. “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.                   

School districts that offered more in-person learning saw smaller declines in enrollment than schools that focused mostly on remote learning, according to Illinois Policy.         

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