Rockford Public Schools will be open on Columbus Day this year, swapping the traditional annual day off for the state’s newly designated Election Day holiday on Nov. 3. Government entities and public schools across the state are adjusting their work and attendance calendars after Gov. JB Pritzker signed the legislation on June 16. 

Some schools are tacking an extra day onto the end of the school year. Some still are trying to figure out how to absorb the additional day off. Efforts to make Election Day a national holiday have been unsuccessful thus far, but several states have established state holidays for Nov. 3. In Virginia, for example, Election Day is in and Lee-Jackson Day, a holiday honoring Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, is out.