Hearing delayed in school workers' court fight about COVID-19 vaccination mandate
A hearing on a request to prohibit St. Charles and Geneva schools from enforcing the state's COVID-19 vaccination mandate on school employees has been delayed.
Kane County Judge Robert Villa ruled Wednesday that the plaintiffs should have named Gov. J.B. Pritzker as a defendant also. He gave their lawyer, Patrick Walsh, permission to amend the complaint, including filing a new request for the temporary restraining order. Walsh told the judge he would file the documents by the end of Thursday afternoon.
A new court date has not been set, but Villa indicated he expects it may happen next week.
A school secretary and teacher in St. Charles Unit District 303, and a teacher and a teacher and a bus-driver instructor in Geneva Unit District 304, filed the action last week. They say their due-process rights are being violated under Pritzker's recent orders that say school workers who don't show proof of a vaccine or a weekly test must be barred from school buildings.
School workers were to have gotten at least the first dose of the vaccine by Sept. 20.