Prairie State Wire

Illinois GOP Chairman Don Tracy is encouraging voters to vote on Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Local elections will be on Feb. 28. A runoff will be held on April 4 if needed.

“I would like to thank all those running in our local elections, especially our school and library board races,” Tracy said in his weekly memo. “Due to the left’s infiltration of our schools through teacher unions and otherwise, it is more important than ever that Republicans become engaged in the hard work of electing good people to public office. School and Library Boards are of particular importance because of their outsized influence on our children, our future leaders.”

Many conservatives have lined up to combat radicalism. Korte, Edwardsville GOP activist and former candidate, told Metro East Sun, is applauding conservative school board candidates in the face of the leftist curriculum in public schools. “School boards are supposed to be nonpartisan. But we know there has been an underlying agenda from the top down, via the Illinois State Board of Education to indoctrinate our children,” Korte said. “Illinois politicians have done everything in their power to take over local control and push unwanted curriculum in our schools.”

Due to education in the state trending left and poor results in such highly politicized environments, State Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) has suggested conservatives run for local school boards in order to take back control of the reigns of education. “The conservatives have sat around here and said, ‘well, these school board elections are nonpartisan.’ So we kind of stayed out, out of a political presence in school board races, But the Democrats haven’t,” Caulkins, who represents District 101, told the Macon Reporter. “The Democrats haven't. They've supported their candidates and we end up with, you know, liberal, progressive socialists, school board members who then allow or promote that to the superintendents.” 

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) said the state has been usurping local power by passing mandates for curriculum in schools. "Speaking for myself, I believe the state places far too many costly, unfunded and burdensome mandates on our educators; not to mention the heavy hand of Illinois politicians and state bureaucrats making new mandates on curriculum,” McCombie told Prairie State Wire. “I believe in local control of schools, that school boards and administrators with input from parents are best equipped to make decisions regarding curriculum and classroom priorities for our kids’ education.” “After all, our local school board members live in our community and are accountable to us, the voters. Unfortunately, with the state passing new mandates into law, local school districts across Illinois have no choice other than to comply. We need to begin to return control of curriculum to local school boards and administrators while always giving parents a voice in their child’s education.”