Yang Rohr Sponsors Legislation to Prioritize Students’ Safety, Voter Access

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – To ensure students have equal access to education throughout the school year and are learning in a safe environment, state Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, D-Naperville, is sponsoring legislation that will allow school boards across the state to adapt their electronic learning program if they have schools in their districts used as polling locations.

“As a mother of three young children, my top priority is to make sure our schools are safe,” said Yang Rohr. “No student or parent should be concerned that potentially dangerous individuals are in our school buildings, so we need to take the necessary precautions to keep our students out of harm’s way. It is also important that people vote and have ample opportunity to exercise this right. This legislation helps to keep voting sites open while mitigating risk to our students’ safety. By allowing our schools to make the decision to offer remote learning on Election Day, we can protect people’s right to vote and protect our students from a potentially dangerous situation.”

Yang Rohr is supporting House Bill 4 to permit local school boards to adopt a research-backed policy for e-learning days across the district in lieu of scheduled emergency days. A former member of the Naperville 203 school board, in November 2020, Yang Rohr and her board colleagues sponsored and passed a resolution with the Illinois Association of School Boards calling for legislation to allow e-learning on Election Day. On the school board and now as a state legislator, Yang Rohr has worked to enhance students’ learning opportunities in a safe environment, especially during COVID-19.

“The past year has shown that schools can successfully navigate e-learning as a supplement to traditional, in-person education,” said Yang Rohr. “By adopting this measure, our schools across the state can ensure that students don’t have to miss school or compromise student safety because their building is used as a polling location.”