In alignment with CDC guidance, the state of Illinois has issued an updated Executive Order 2021-18 that requires that masks be worn indoors by all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to P-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status. The state also requires all public and nonpublic schools to comply with contact tracing, in combination with isolation and quarantine, as directed by state and local public health departments.
Following the FDA’s full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, this guidance has been updated in alignment with Executive Order 2021-22, implemented by 23 Ill. Admin Code 6, which requires that all school personnel receive the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to at least weekly testing.
Further, effective September 17, 2021 with the issuance of Executive Order 2021-24 (as amended by Executive Order 2021-25), schools and school districts must exclude students and school personnel from school who are confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, who are close contacts to a case, or who exhibit COVID-19 like symptoms.
Additionally, the following COVID-19 prevention strategies remain critical to protect students and community members who are not fully vaccinated, especially in areas of moderate to high community transmission levels.
According to the CDC, children should return to full-time in-person learning with proper prevention strategies in place. Understanding that schools and communities can be differently situated, the updated K-12 guidance from the CDC stresses the importance of offering in-person learning, regardless of whether all of the prevention strategies can be implemented at a particular school. Schools should work with local public health officials to determine which prevention strategies are needed in addition to the required strategies by evaluating local levels of community transmission (i.e., low, moderate, substantial, or high) and local vaccine coverage. School metrics, including county-level case rates and community vaccination rates, can be found on IDPH’s website.
The CDC K-12 schools guidance references an array of prevention strategies in the context of keeping students and staff safe: “Schools will have a mixed population of both people who are fully vaccinated and people who are not fully vaccinated. Elementary schools primarily serve children under 12 years of age who are not eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine at this time. Other schools (e.g., middle schools, K-8 schools) may also have students who are not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. These variations require K-12 administrators to make decisions about the use of COVID-19 prevention strategies in their schools to protect people who are not fully vaccinated.”
If school administrators, in consultation with local public health officials, decide to remove any of the recommended rather than required prevention strategies for their school based on local conditions, they should remove them one at a time and monitor closely (with adequate testing through the school and/or community) for any increases in COVID-19 cases. Required prevention strategies may not be removed at any time. (Review IDPH answers to FAQs on COVID-19 testing in schools for more information.) Schools should communicate their strategies and any changes in plans to teachers, staff, families, and directly to older students, using accessible materials and communication channels, in a language and at a literacy level that teachers, staff, students, and families understand.
Here are educational examples to assist schools in determining how to use prevention strategies to protect students and staff, as informed by local public health conditions:
- A school in a community with substantial (50-99 new cases per 100,000 population in the last seven days) or high transmission (≥100 new cases per 100,000 population in the last seven days), with low teacher, staff, or student vaccination coverage (e.g., <30% of eligible population is fully vaccinated), and with a screening testing program in place may need to lessen physical distancing to ensure all students can access in-person learning.
- A school in a community with substantial or high transmission, with a low teacher, staff, or student vaccination rate, and without a student screening testing program should continue to maximize physical distancing and, in communities with high transmission, discontinue sports that involve sustained close contacts with others, unless all participants are fully vaccinated, as recommended by CDC.
- A school in a community with moderate transmission (10-49 new cases per 100,000 population in the last seven days), with moderate vaccination coverage (e.g., 40-60% of eligible population is fully vaccinated), and with a screening testing program in place could decide to suspend screening testing for the general student body but will continue screening for unvaccinated staff and students involved in higher-risk extracurricular activities until vaccine coverage increases or transmission decreases or both.
- A school in a community with low transmission (<10 new cases per 100,000 population in the last seven days) and a high vaccination rate (e.g., ≥70% of eligible population is fully vaccinated) could consider no longer requiring physical distancing or suspending screening testing for students.
The considerations listed above are intended to serve as examples of how school administrators may use information about local public health conditions to inform decision-making. They are not intended to serve as a definitive state-recommended framework to determine how to adjust mitigation strategies.