School Late Start Grant - HB4273 Creates a grant program to help school districts offset the additional costs of implementing late start (8am or later) school days in grades 6-12. ("Hit the snooze button: States debate later high school start times")

Workplace Readiness Education - HB 4417 Requires providing public high school students with information on laws pertaining to worker rights (e.g. unemployment insurance, leaves of absence, right to organize, etc). Establishes Workplace Readiness Week in public high schools.

Charter School Approval 3-year Limit - HB 4840 This bill would limit the length of time that a charter school approval would last to no more than three school years for both initial approvals and renewals. Currently initial approvals may last for five years and renewals can be up to ten years. It would also ensure that a moratorium on school actions in Chicago Public Schools would not prevent the non-renewal of a charter school.

Healthy School Meals for All Program Funding - HB 4785 In spring 2023, Illinois passed the 'Healthy School Meals for All' bill which provides free breakfast and lunches to all students who want it, but the legislation did not receive any funding. This bill appropriates $209M from the General Revenue Fund to the State Board of Education for fund the costs of that legislation. ("Illinois rallies for budget appropriation to enable healthy school meals for all")

Limits on State Testing - HB 4955 This bill would prevent future proposals to expand state tests beyond what the federal government requires for grades K-6 and encourages the Illinois State Board of Ed to pursue any flexibility in federal assessment requirements.

Bills we oppose

Police in CPS Schools - HB 5008 [Fact Sheet] This bill would allow local school councils to contract with the Chicago Police Department to have police officers (aka school resource officers, SROs) on school grounds, overruling the Chicago Board of Education's decision to end the SRO program in CPS. The language of HB 5008 does not place any restrictions or regulations on such contracts (e.g. number of officers, training of officers). We strongly oppose this bill. Law-enforcement agents do not belong in schools. Stationing police officers in schools harms the safety, security and the educational experience of students, in particular Black and Latinx students, low-income students, students with disabilities and LGBTQ+ students. And, data collected on students by police in schools is not protected by federal & state student privacy law. See this review of the extensive research from Chicago and elsewhere showing the negative impact of police in schools.

Moratorium on Changes to Selective CPS Schools - HB 303 [Fact Sheet] This bill would prohibit the Chicago Board of Education from making any budgetary or admissions changes to any schools with selective admissions requirements until the fully elected board is seated. It is highly problematic because it doesn't clearly define which schools the law would apply to, and it prevents a shift to position-based, need-based equitable budgeting. In addition, it makes no reference to existing statutes regulating school actions in CPS and the facilities master planning process, which ILGA developed with the input of Chicago school communities over many years. [Note this bill was introduced as HB 5766 and passed out of committee as HB 303.]

Redefine Temporary and Permanent Student Records - SB 3166/HB 5275 This bill would amend the Illinois School Student Records Act to require large amounts of highly sensitive information to be retained as part of a student's record for 60 years rather than 5 years. This is highly problematic from a data privacy perspective; in its current form, we strongly oppose this bill. (Note: we do expect this bill to be amended and its scope drastically reduced. We'll be keeping a close eye on it.)