Governmental Relations

Provides policy development and agency planning based on data analysis, public reporting of performance in relation to legislative requirements and Board goals; Agency business planning and performance measures; gives special attention to school and district accreditation, state student assessments, school improvement and support for districts and schools in academic difficulty.

2009 General Assembly Calendar for the House of Representatives

This calendar is for the dates the House of Representatives is in Session only. Once the Senate releases its schedule, the calendar will be updated to reflect those dates.

Veto Session Update

Veto Session was held November 12th through the 21st. The General Assembly passed three additional bills impacting education. These bills have not yet been acted upon by the Governor:

SB 2688: This bill amends the School Safety Drill Act to require that each year, schools must conduct a law enforcement drill to address incidents that would necessitate the use of law enforcement officials (currently school districts are strongly encouraged to undergo these drills). The drills must be conducted according to the school district's or private school's emergency and crisis response plans, protocols, and procedures, with the participation of the appropriate law enforcement agency. The bill further provides that law enforcement drills may be conducted on days and times when students are not present in the school building (instead of requiring that the drills be conducted at each school building that houses school children).

The bill also amends Article 34 of the School Code pertaining to the City of Chicago School District 299 by providing that if the child of a parent member of a local school council dies during the member's term in office, the member may continue to serve on the local school council for the balance of his or her term. (Currently an individual can only serve on the local school council if their child is enrolled in that school).

SB 2743: This legislation amends the Illinois Municipal Code concerning violations of municipal ordinance regulating truant students. Specifically, the bill provides that the hearing date for the violation must be not less than 7 nor more than 40 days after the violation is reported. The law currently provides that a fine can be imposed by a municipal ordinance regulating truants that does not exceed $100, or community service, or both for violators age 10 and under; however, the current bill raises the age to 13.

There were problems enforcing the current fines and procedures in the law that were established by PA 94-1011 because the law requires sharing information between school officials and law enforcement officials, that is not allowed under the Student Records Act and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). However, changes in this legislation address the records issues by specifying that local officials or authorities that are designated as (i) part of the juvenile justice system and (ii) "juvenile authorities", thus a school district may disclose education records relating to attendance to juvenile authorities if the school board determines the disclosure will enhance the juvenile justice system's ability to serve, prior to adjudication, the student whose records are released. The bill further specifies the procedure for the disclosure of student attendance records and provides that the juvenile authority must certify in writing that the records will not be disclosed to any other entity without the prior written consent of the student's parent or custodian, except as provided under State law.

SB 2824: This is special legislation for Pana CUSD #8. This bill amends Article 7 of the School Code by providing that, upon resolution of the school board, the county clerk must extend taxes to pay the principal of and interest on any bonds issued exclusively to refund any bonded indebtedness of the annexing school district against all of the taxable property that was situated within the boundaries of the annexing district as the boundaries existed at the time of the issuance of the bonded indebtedness being refunded and not against any of the taxable property in the dissolved school district, provided that (i) the net interest rate on the refunding bonds may not exceed the net interest rate on the refunded bonds, (ii) the final maturity date of the refunding bonds may not extend beyond the final maturity date of the refunded bonds, and (iii) the tax levy to pay the refunding bonds in any levy year may not exceed the tax levy that would have been required to pay the refunded bonds for that levy year. Provides that these provisions are applicable to school districts that were dissolved and their territory annexed to another school district pursuant to a referendum held in April of 2003. The bill further provides that these provisions are inoperative 2 years after the effective date of the amendatory Act. This legislation is effective immediately.

Other Bill Action during Veto Session

SJR 109: This is the waiver resolution. The resolution contains language that would limit the four waiver applications for the use of simulators to just one year, instead of the five year waiver the districts had applied for, and also limits driver’s education fee requests for three districts to $250. One fee request was a new request and two are renewals. The House Education committee, led by Representative Eddy, expressed displeasure with the Senate picking just three waivers to reduce to $250 when there were other renewal requests for over $250 that were not being limited. The Committee decided they would likely amend the resolution and send it back to the Senate once they received it. According to the 60 day timeline established in Section 2-3.25g of the School Code, the General Assembly has until January 20th to act on the waivers or they are all deemed granted.

HB 4890: Senator Susan Garrett filed an amendment on HB 4890 that would require ISBE, in conjunction with the Department of Public Health, to develop and make available to each school board guidelines for the management of students with life-threatening food allergies by January 1, 2009. These guidelines must include, but are not limited to, establishing education and training for school personnel on how to deal with students with life-threatening food allergies, procedures for responding to life-threatening food allergy reactions, a process for developing an individualized health care and food allergy action plan for students and protocols to prevent exposure to food allergens. Each school board will be required to implement a policy based on these guidelines no later than January 1, 2010. The bill currently sits over in the House on the order of concurrence. (This bill was introduced previously as HB 5338).

SB 2858: This is a bill from the spring session that would require ISBE to ban vegetable oils containing trans fats in foods served in public school cafeterias beginning on July 1, 2009 and ban all foods containing trans fats from public schools beginning on July 1, 2010. The bill lost in the floor debate 39-71-0 on Thursday.

SB 266: Representative Monique Davis introduced an amendment to SB 266 that states that students cannot be suspended or given detention during regular school hours for violating a school districts rules or policies governing use or possession of a cell phone. The amendment did not pass out of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee.

Public Act Summaries—Education Related Bills

Budget Information

Reports Submitted in 2008

These reports are mandated by statute or resolution to be submitted to the General Assembly.

For further information, contact Nicole Wills or Shawn Rotherham in the Governmental Relations Division at 217-782-6510.