There's been lots of public education news in recent days. Below we cover three stories where your action is needed:

• Legislation to create national voucher program advances in the US House
• Fallout from the Powerschool data breach continues, but no movement on student data privacy bill in Springfield
• For-profit virtual counseling services in CPS endanger students' private data

Illinois Families for Public Schools sent a letter to the Chicago Board of Education today with a list of concerns about privacy and other issues with a new telehealth program where mental health services are provided by for-profit company Hazel Health. IL-FPS urges the Board to answer the questions posed in the letter and revise the consent forms that parents agree to when they sign their student up for services.

All over Illinois (and around the world!), people were in the streets again yesterday, this time for May Day, marching for workers, immigrants and the public good. Here’s three ways we can keep that energy going in the fight to defend our public schools…

The daily ramping up of authoritarianism by the Trump regime is distressing and daunting. And we’re seeing the impact of attacks on Illinois’ public schools, where federal funds are being slashed for everything from HVAC improvements to local foods in school cafeterias to National History Day. But there is also resistance taking place at all levels—including protecting public schools and public school students—that we must celebrate and build on.  

Deadlines in both chambers of the General Assembly this week mean it is crunch time in the Capitol (yes, again!) Some bills we are supporting and one we oppose are still being negotiated. This means that they’ve had initial committee votes, but need an amendment approved before getting a floor vote.

With the deadline to move out of one chamber to the other chamber this Friday, their fate is uncertain. Keep an eye out for witness slip alerts.

Spring has now officially sprung, and the Illinois General Assembly is in full swing. We’ll have a full legislative update with more action alerts for you for the upcoming week. Some bills need additional committee votes to get to the floor, including HB 2696, the student data privacy bill we're supporting. Check our social media feeds for info in the meantime: Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram.

Looking beyond the state legislature, on the political front and soon-to-be on the economic front, things are rough, and will probably get rougher all around, including for our public schools. Below are some opportunities to stand up, get involved and create community.

We all want our public schools to be safe and nurturing environments for children and young people. But, in 2019 shocking investigative reporting by Pro Publica and the Chicago Tribune showed that, unfortunately, schools across Illinois were using practices to physically restrain and seclude students—especially those with disabilities—that subjected them to harm, trauma and even the risk of death. Now a new bill would undermine the reforms passed to address those terrible practices.

IL-FPS is in Springfield today and tomorrow talking to legislators about giving our state student data privacy law some teeth by passing HB 2696.

Right now, the Student Online Personal Protection Act (SOPPA) depends solely on our IL State Attorney General for enforcement.

On Tuesday, employees at the US Department of Education were told not to come into work the next day, and shortly thereafter layoffs that will bring the total employees to half of what there were in January were announced.

Chalkbeat - U.S. Department of Education to lay off one-third of staff

Although shutting down the Department altogether would require a vote from Congress, slashing the staff will achieve a similar result. Already last month, hundreds of millions in research grants funded by USED were cut and thousands of hearings on discrimination in the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) were cancelled as well.

The legality of all of these moves is under dispute, but the negative impact is not.

Late Friday afternoon Chicago Public Schools families learned that CPS students were (once again!) victims of a massive data breach, one that impacts all current and former students back to 2017—700,000 people. Read more about that here. While we don’t yet know if the software vendor, Cleo, was at fault for insecurely holding data, what we do know is that, even if Cleo is at fault, most families impacted by this breach likely have no recourse under Illinois law to sue the vendor.