School Districts Receive Revised Guidance for 2021-22

On July 9, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance regarding the start of the 2021-22 school year, and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) followed by adopting the guidelines regarding the return to in-person learning in Illinois public schools.

 A letter to educators from Carmen I. Ayala, the Illinois State Superintendent of Schools, highlights two key recommendations in the latest guidance:

• Requiring masks only for individuals who are not fully vaccinated; and

• Recommending at least three feet of physical distance between students within classrooms, but not if this would be a barrier to in-person learning.

Other key points to the revised guidance include continued mitigation efforts and emphasizing “layered prevention strategies” (masking, distancing, testing) to protect people who are not fully vaccinated, which at this time includes children under the age of 12.

School officials and interested parties are urged to read the revised CDC guidance and the IDPH announcement, and revisit IASB.com in the coming days for more on the guidance and its impacts to and response by Illinois boards of education.