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CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Illinois K-12 schools will remain closed to on-site instruction for the rest of academic year, Gov. JB Pritzker said Friday.
The widely anticipated announcement is due to the COVID-19 pandemic and comes as Illinois residents are under a "stay-at-home" order through April 30 to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Pritzker said he weighed the decision carefully, considering the data about new COVID-19 cases in Illinois and the need to "bend the curve" of additional infections. He noted some 2 million students attend schools across the state, going to campus buildings, mingling with others and going back home.
"The science says our students can’t go back to their normal routine," Pritkzer said during a briefing with reporters in Chicago.
By closing schools for the rest of the academic year, Illinois will join 27 states and 3 U.S. territories that have ordered or recommended school building closures for the rest of the academic year, affecting approximately 25.2 million public school students, Education Week reported. All Illinois schools, including the Chicago Public Schools system, had begun remote or e-learning plans.
Pritzker first ordered private and public schools closed starting March 17. The order originally was to last through March 30. Then Pritzker extended the state's broader stay-at-home order through April 30, and schools remained closed.
In Chicago, the closure impacts 355,000 CPS students, who were set to be in school until June 18. Another 1.8 million students statewide were to largely finish school in either mid- to later May or early June.
Pritzker said it's too early to say whether he'll extend the stay-at-home order beyond this month.
Also Friday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported the largest daily jump in the number of new COVID-19 cases -- 1,842. That takes the total number of cases in Illinois to 27,575, Director Ngozi Ezike said.
Meantime, the state reported 62 additional deaths related to COVID-19, for a statewide death toll to date of 1,134.
State officials have said they think Illinois has bent the trajectory of the COVID-19 curve but not yet flattened it. Pritzker noted that there is a range of statistics to look at. He noted the time it takes the number of cases to double has lengthened -- a good thing. But the trajectory is not heading downward yet.
“I don’t think we’ve peaked,” Ezike said.