We've got lots of important updates below, including good news on protecting student privacy in CPS and recent wins on the voucher front, bad news on the millionaires tax, and our plans for May Day.

If you are on social media, you can get many of these updates as they break via our feeds: Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, Threads.

Chicago Public Schools ends contract with mental health tech company

IL-FPS began asking questions last spring about a no-cost contract that CPS had with mental health tech company Hazel Health, which was rolled out in March 2025. Hazel was to provide teletherapy counseling services to any CPS high school student, and the contract was paid for by Hazel billing students’ public or private insurance; anyone without insurance was covered by a grant from UnitedHealthcare. Both the contract and the consent form that parents sign in order for students to receive services raised big issues about how students’ most sensitive data was being used.

In October, along with five other advocacy groups, we wrote to the Chicago Board of Education asking them to fix or cancel the contract before it renewed automatically at the end of 2025. Around that time Hazel merged with another mental health tech startup, Little Otter, which added to our concerns about whether Hazel was adequately protecting student data from commercial exploitation. Little Otter's CEO is now Hazel’s President.

We, along with Legal Action Chicago, met with several Chicago Board of Ed members and two CPS lawyers in late October, where we presented our concerns in detail.

The Board did not take any public action on the contract addressing those concerns, but, according to reporting from online education publication The 74, the contract, which had automatically renewed for two years through the end of 2027, will now terminate 18 months early, on June 30, 2026.

We made a Freedom of Information Act request last month, and it showed that, as of the end of March 2026, only 466 students had received services from Hazel, on average receiving fewer than six sessions with a Hazel clinician when their "care program" was complete.

The 74 article says that Hazel "shortened its contract with the Chicago Public Schools because of 'challenges securing funding.'" Given that Hazel had agreed to provide services for 110,000 students but served fewer than 0.5% of that number, it seems surprising that this was too costly of a venture for the company to continue.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any public transparency from the district yet on the ending of this contract, and key questions about the contract and consent form remain unanswered.

We still do not know what data Hazel collects from students nor why, in order to receive services, parents had to agree that their children’s personally-identifiable data could be used for commercial purposes and might be illegally accessed.

We also note that, worryingly, if Hazel is in difficult financial straits, as has been reported elsewhere, as well as by the 74, and another company acquires them, all the personal data Hazel holds can be transferred to the acquiring company. We’ve seen this with other ed tech providers (e.g. here and here). To do right by the CPS students who’ve received services under this contract, CPS should not permit Hazel to retain any student data when the contract ends.

If your child received services from Hazel, we urge you to request via CPS that Hazel destroys any data they hold about your child. If you’d like to get your own copy of any of the records Hazel holds before they are destroyed, you have the right to do so. Please reach out if you have any questions about how to exercise your rights under state and federal student privacy laws to make these requests: [email protected]  

CPS also has a very large, multi-vendor agreement under which students are receiving direct telehealth therapy services, and that agreement also ends on June 30, 2026. There is a major need for mental health services for CPS students, and going forward, the district should prioritize services from CPS clinicians or, at the very least, local non-profits based in the school community, not tech firms funded by venture capital.

Wins in the fight against the federal voucher program

A huge thank you to everyone who has taken actions, small and large, to advocate to keep vouchers out of Illinois over the last few weeks. This has led to some important wins:

• On April 8th, the Chicago Board of Education voted 15-0 with three abstentions to pass a resolution opposing Illinois’ participation in the federal voucher program. You can read our full report on the debate and vote here. In short, this vote shows how politically unpopular this program is for Board members, many of whom will be on the ballot this fall, when every board seat is up for election on November 3rd.

• Last week, the Cook County Board deferred indefinitely a resolution in favor of Illinois opting into the voucher program. IL-FPS delivered a letter signed by 43 organizations urging them to oppose the resolution.

• Also last week, US Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Maizie Hirono (D-HI) introduced a bill to repeal the federal voucher program altogether, the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act, with 28 Democratic co-sponsors, including both Senators from Illinois, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth. Read Senator Kelly’s op-ed about the bill here: “School vouchers broke Arizona. We must repeal national plan.”

Pat yourself on the back if you made a phone call, sent an email, submitted a public comment, attended a public meeting or encouraged your neighbors to do any of the above! This collective action has paid off in elected leaders making it loud and clear that federal vouchers are unpopular, and Illinois should reject this opaque, unaccountable, and inequitable scheme for distributing federal education dollars to private schools.

Ultimately, the decision about whether Illinois will participate in the voucher scheme will be made by the Governor and the General Assembly (the latter if they choose to weigh in). But advocacy at the local and federal level complements the advocacy at the state level. We need a united front at every level to say vouchers are wrong for Illinois: public funds must stay in public schools, and we need real solutions to get us the fair, full funding so that every community has strong public schools that welcome all kids who come through the doors.

Pressure on our governor and state legislators is still very much needed. If you haven’t sent emails to them yet via our link, now is the time: No federal school vouchers for Illinois!

If you've emailed already, follow up with a phone call; state senators in particular can take concrete action to show their opposition to the voucher program by signing on as a sponsor of SB 3966, a bill that would prohibit Illinois’ participation in the program. Kudos to Senator Guzmán, the chief sponsor, and Senators Ventura, Simmons and Peters who’ve signed on as co-sponsors.

No millionaires tax on the ballot…

The brief, bright hope that Illinois might be on the way to ensuring wealthy Illinoisans pay what they owe to support our schools and communities was squelched this week. This is disappointing. Illinois voters didn’t get a constitutional amendment for a progressive income tax over the finish line back in 2020, and the House considering an amendment this week was the closest we’ve gotten in the six years since.

That said, the amendment language would have distributed funds to school districts on a per-pupil basis, which doesn’t make much sense while we are still funding high-poverty school districts less than low-poverty ones. The evidence-based funding formula has improved state funding fairness since 2017, and any new state dollars should be apportioned through it as well.

Speaker Welch has been bullish on a millionaires tax this spring and made a public commitment on Thursday to get this done eventually although it is not clear if he means 2028. (Amendments can only be on the ballot in general election years.) We haven’t heard anything as enthusiastic as that from the Governor or Senate President Don Harmon.

Getting a measure on the ballot and passed will require all hands on deck from elected officials and advocates. This session in Springfield, and especially this week, we’ve seen energy and can-do spirit to move a proposal to get a deal done for the billionaires who own the Bears.

We’d like to see that energy and can-do spirit put into making sure that the wealthy pay what they owe, so that all of us have schools and communities with the resources our families need.

There are some other legislative options still on the table this session that could generate revenue from corporations and billionaires. The Illinois Revenue Alliance is supporting several bills to do this. You can use their letter-writing form to contact your legislators about them. Edit the start of your letter to add: “Since the General Assembly has failed to put a millionaires tax on the ballot, please support additional ways that ensure the wealthy pay what they owe in Illinois.”

May Day: Rise Up and Play!

This May Day is a national day of action calling for people over billionaires, no ICE and no war, and encouraging a day of no business-as-usual: no work, no school, no shopping. Find May Day actions near you via Mobilize, including a rally and march starting at 1pm in Union Park in Chicago.

Illinois Families for Public Schools is partnering with Public School Strong D84 chapter in Franklin Park for an all-day family-friendly event, Friday, May 1st, 9am – 4pm at North Park, 10040 Addison Ave, Franklin Park, IL 60131. Register here.

If you are nearby, please join us for all or part of the day; come learn how we can protect our neighbors and our public schools in Illinois! There will be story time, art stations, singing, and more. Register here.

Why are we taking action on May Day? It's a day when educators, parents, public servants, and neighbors are coming together to fight for our kids’ future, and protecting public education is a key way to defend against the attacks on workers, our democracy and our communities!

Save the date to celebrate with us and raise some funds!

Mark your calendars for Thursday, June 25th at 6:30pm: Illinois Families for Public Schools will be celebrating our 10th anniversary and raising funds to stay in the fight for public schools. Save the date and keep an eye out for more details! Want to be part of the host committee? Reach out [email protected]

That’s it for now! Thanks for reading and especially for continuing to advocate!