Chicago City Wire

Chris Robling of Clearspan Strategic doesn’t think Illinois’ governor has the right to close schools.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker's latest executive order on April 17 ended in-school instruction for Illinois students for the rest of the academic year. School systems were told previously to switch to remote learning after his initial closure order went into effect.

“I’ve said time and time again, our decisions are hard ones, but they follow the science — and the science says our students can’t go back to their normal routine,” Pritzker posted on his Facebook page. “Therefore, I am suspending in-person learning in schools for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year."

Robling, a Chicago resident, believe the governor foes not have the authority to close Illinois schools. He also doesn’t think the state school systems are ready for it.

“Sadly, parents should have zero confidence that Illinois schools can prepare state of the art K-12 distance learning at the snap of his finger,” he told Chicago City Wire.

It wasn't only the governor and education officials who came under fire from Robling, whose career includes crisis and litigation counselling, media, government and politics.

“Were the teacher’s unions interested in education, the parallel digital curriculum would already exist. We can be quite sure it does not,” he said.

That’s nearly the opposite of what the governor had to say about teachers and administrators in the state.

“Our teachers and administrators are doing what they do best – stepping up to ensure every child in this state receives the education they deserve,” Gov. Pritzker said in his Facebook post.