A Champaign County school leader is pleased students in her district will not be required to wear masks after a trio of victories for Illinois families opposed to the State of Illinois' mask mandate have been defeated in the last month.

Dr. Lindsey Hall is the Superintendent of Mahomet-Seymour Schools and told Regional Radio News on the WHOW Morning Show Monday February has been a rollercoaster between all the judiciary rulings and weather events. While the mask mandate lifted Monday, she says her board voted to go mask-optional shortly after the ruling came from the Sangamon County judge earlier in the month.

For parents and families in this battle, it has been about masks but for school leaders, the issue has been about local control. Dr. Hall says for those that spent the last few years in this battle with them, the best way to make sure local control is never stripped of schools again is to vote.

As parents and school boards fought essentially the same battle, the State bearing down blanket mandates is not new for school administrators. Dr. Hall explains there are a couple of issues with mandates and those are they are often unfunded and they are often billed as a small change but too many take away the local control of school boards.

Dr. Hall calls it very frustrating and says the handling of COVID is reflective of the overall approach to education in Illinois.