South Central Reporter

Veteran state Rep. Charlie Meier (R-Okawville) is among the growing number of lawmakers now urging Gov. J.B. Pritzker to reopen all schools for the sake of students' mental health.

“You look at our students that aren’t in school, the stress on their mental health,” Meier told the South Central Reporter. “When you’re in a Zoom class, it’s really hard for that teacher to tell if a student is having a mental issue. It’s hard to reach out and tell which ones are needing help.”

Even as COVID-19 infection rates have declined and the number of people getting the vaccine has ticked upward, Pritzker has refrained from opening all grade schools on a full-time basis. Chicago Public Schools high school students remain stuck in remote learning as the Chicago Teachers Union continues to express concerns about what it sees as inadequate safety protocols

“We’ve got to get Illinois going, get our youth back on track,” Meier added. “I encourage all my districts anyway we can to try to get students back. If you look at students' test scores, we’ve lost a period of time. Most student test scores aren’t where they were a year ago. We don’t want to have a lost generation. Life behind the computer screen for a year is not the best way. We need interaction.”

Meier said he also feels the pain of the many student athletes across Illinois who have been sidelined most of the last year by the governor’s restrictions.

“I have nieces and nephews in Missouri and they haven’t missed a day of school and they’ve had sports where parents were at the games,” he said. “It can be done. I encourage all our districts to get to that point now.”

More recently, parents in Illinois have took to the streets to hammer home that very point. In Naperville, hundreds of demonstrators recently gathered for a protest representing at least nine Illinois school districts where they demanded a return to full-time in-person learning.