Bills Waiting for Gubernatorial Veto, Signature, or Amendment
There are also several bills worth watching which passed the General Assembly this spring, but still await the Governor's signature. Please take careful note that none of these provisions become law until or unless the Governor signs them, and the Governor has the power to veto, sign, ignore, or amend any of the following bills:
1. HB 1561 - Threat Assessments and Funding
Creates a new 105 ILCS 128/45 (Section 45 of the Illinois School Safety Drill Act) related to threat assessment procedures. Each school district must implement a threat assessment procedure as part of its targeted school violence prevention policies. The procedure must include the creation of a threat assessment team, which must include at least one administrator, one teacher, one school counselor, one school psychologist, one school social worker, and one law enforcement official. Must be in place within 180 days of effective date.
Allows (via referendum) the use of school facility and resources sales tax to be used, in addition to school facility purposes, for school resource officers and mental health professionals. Counties which already have the school facility sales tax would have to pass a new referendum to use the proceeds for school resource officers and mental health professionals.
2. HB 2627 - Police Detainment and Questioning
Before detaining and questioning a student on school grounds who is under 18 years of age and who is suspected of committing a criminal act, a law enforcement officer, school resource officer, or other school security personnel must do all of the following:
(1) Ensure that notification or attempted notification of the student's parent or guardian is made.
(2) Document the time and manner in which the notification or attempted notification under paragraph (1) occurred.
(3) Make reasonable efforts to ensure that the student's parent or guardian is present during the questioning or, if the parent or guardian is not present, ensure that school personnel, including, but not limited to, a school social worker, a school psychologist, a school nurse, a school guidance counselor, or any other mental health professional, are present during the questioning.
(4) If practicable, make reasonable efforts to ensure that a law enforcement officer trained in promoting safe interactions and communications with youth is present during the questioning. An officer who received training in youth investigations approved or certified by his or her law enforcement agency or under Section 10.22 of the Police Training Act or a juvenile police officer, as defined under Section 1-3 of the Juvenile Court Act of 1987, satisfies the requirement under this paragraph.
This Section does not limit the authority of a law enforcement officer to make an arrest on school grounds. This Section does not apply to circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that urgent and immediate action is necessary to do any of the following:
(1) Prevent bodily harm or injury to the student or any other person.
(2) Apprehend an armed or fleeing suspect.
(3) Prevent the destruction of evidence.
(4) Address an emergency or other dangerous situation.
3. SB 0456 - Background Checks and Other Measures
Increases the frequency with which school districts must undertake background checks on employees and other requirements related to school employee abuse of students, including:
- Reviewing and revising school policies regarding sexual abuse investigations at least once every two years.
- Checking the Statewide Sex Offender Database and Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Database every five years.
- Training regarding mandated reporter requirements annually.
- Creates an alternate tenured teacher dismissal process with procedures to protect victims of abuse.
- Creates criminal penalties for negligent failure to report suspected child abuse or neglect.
- Allowing employee discipline to be disclosed indefinitely (as opposed to only discipline less than four years old) if it relates to sexual or physical abuse.
4. HB 2078 - Minimum Teacher Salary
Increases the minimum teacher salary as follows:
(i) $32,076 for the 2020-2021 school year,
(ii) $34,576 for the 2021-2022 school year,
(iii) $37,076 for the 2022-2023 school year, and
(iv) $40,000 for the 2023-2024 school year.
The minimum salary rate for each school year thereafter, subject to review by the General Assembly, shall equal the minimum salary rate for the previous school year increased by a percentage equal to the percentage increase, if any, in the Consumer Price Index For All Urban Consumers for all items published by the United States Department of Labor for the previous school year.
For the purpose of this Section a teacher's salary shall include any amount paid by the school district on behalf of the teacher, as teacher contributions, to the Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois.
5. SB 1213 - Evaluation Appeal Process
Beginning with the first school year following the effective date, each school district shall, in good faith cooperation with its teachers or, if applicable, through good faith bargaining with the exclusive bargaining representative of its teachers, develop and implement an appeals process for "unsatisfactory" ratings under Section 24A-5 that includes, but is not limited to, an assessment of the original rating by a panel of qualified evaluators agreed to by the joint committee referred to in subsection (b) of Section 24A-4 that has the power to revoke the "unsatisfactory" rating it deems to be erroneous. The joint committee shall determine the criteria for successful appeals; however, the issuance of a rating to replace an "unsatisfactory" rating must be determined through bargaining between the exclusive bargaining representative, if any, and the school district.
6. HB 3606 - Data Privacy
Creates significant and difficult-to-implement requirements for student data privacy policies, agreements with software and application providers, and procedures in the event of a data breach. Requires that all school districts implement security practices that meet or exceed industry standards.
7. HB 3586 - Response to Intervention and Other Special Education Requirements
Codifies the regulatory requirements that RTI is the mandatory process for determining eligibility for a specific learning disability, and expands RTI to be a permissive process for other categories of eligibility. Requires that parent be a participant in a collaborative team approach to decision-making regarding RTI.
Requires that no later than three days prior to an eligibility meeting or IEP meeting that the school provides the parents with copies of all written material that will be considered by the IEP team at the meeting so that the parent or guardian may participate in the meeting as a fully-informed team member. The written material must include, but is not limited to, all evaluations and collected data that will be considered at the meeting and, for a child who already has an IEP, a copy of all IEP components that will be discussed by the IEP team, other than the components related to the educational and related service minutes proposed for the child and the child's educational placement.
Requires related service logs that record the type of related services administered under the child's IEP and the minutes of each type of related service that has been administered available to the child's parent or guardian at the annual review of the child's IEP and must also provide a copy of the related service logs at any time upon request of the child's parent or guardian. The local education agency must inform the child's parent or guardian within 20 school days from the beginning of the school year or upon establishment of an IEP of his or her ability to request those related service logs. The school must provide notification to the child's parent or guardian within 3 school days of the local education agency's non-compliance with the child's IEP and must include information on the parent's or guardian's ability to request compensatory services.
School districts may not use any measure which would prevent or delay an IEP team from adding a service to the IEP or create a time restriction in which a service is prohibited from being added to the IEP. The school district may not build functions into its computer software that would remove any services from a student's IEP without the approval of the IEP team and may not prohibit the IEP team from adding a service to the IEP.