Lake County Gazette

Vernon Hills Park District’s Little Learners School is being accused of violating children’s rights by implementing forced quarantines.

"Excellent reporting by @jonjkerr on the Vernon Hills Park District's illegal actions against healthy preschoolers. Illinois parents, take note," a COVID-19 researcher using the Twitter alias Emma Woodhouse said.

The issue was fleshed out in reporting by Jon Kerr on his Substack, the Kerr Report. In his story, Kerr introduces a father named Russ, whose 5 1/2-year-old son was denied entry to his preschool after a fellow student was reported to have COVID-19. Russ’s son was one of four children who were quarantined after the revelation and expected to wear masks for five days upon returning to school the next day. However, Russ decided to dig into the matter further and determined only the local health department could force his son to mask and only by a formal order, not the informal one the school handed down. 

Julie Freels, the park district’s director of compliance, denied the students entry when they appeared the next day without a mask. Despite invoicing 20 ILCS 2305, which noted only local health departments can force quarantines and they should not interfere with education, Russ’s son was turned away from the school. Kerr opined Russ’s son was turned away, "due to a continued culture of fear and anxiety, shaped by leaders of public institutions, diseased messaging that trickles down into the general public, over an endemic virus that shouldn’t cause such worried emotions." Kerr noted he called Patrick Walsh, a partner in the law firm Griffin, Williams, McMahon and Walsh, who told him the school could not issue the quarantine alone.  

"The health department has to issue the order of quarantine," Walsh said, according to Kerr. "The school can never do that." 

Despite the legal opinion, Kerr reported the Vernon Hills Park District is sticking by the quarantine policy, despite its apparent illegality. 

That is backed up by Illinois’ Public Health Act rules regarding "preventing or interfering with a child’s attendance at school," noting that "whoever by threat, menace or intimidation prevents any child entitled to attend a public or non-public school in this state from attending such school or interferes with any such child’s attendance at that school shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor."

The matter was covered in a Feb. 4 ruling by Sangamon Circuit Court Judge Raylene Grischow, The Center Square reported. Due to the governor's illegal instructions, Grischow declared Gov. J.B. Pritzker's state of emergency, which includes obligatory masking and immunization, "null and void." Grischow said Pritzker and his agencies pushed such conditions on students without their consent. The Fourth District Appellate Court upheld the decision regarding the unconstitutionality of forced masking.