Public Act 101-0515

HB3586 Enrolled LRB101 09750 AXK 54851 b

AN ACT concerning education.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,

represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The School Code is amended by changing Sections

14-6.01 and 14-8.02f and by adding Section 14-8.02g as follows:

(105 ILCS 5/14-6.01) (from Ch. 122, par. 14-6.01)

Sec. 14-6.01. Powers and duties of school boards. School

boards of one or more school districts establishing and

maintaining any of the educational facilities described in this

Article shall, in connection therewith, exercise similar

powers and duties as are prescribed by law for the

establishment, maintenance, and management of other recognized

educational facilities. Such school boards shall include only

eligible children in the program and shall comply with all the

requirements of this Article and all rules and regulations

established by the State Board of Education. Such school boards

shall accept in part-time attendance children with

disabilities of the types described in Sections 14-1.02 through

14-1.07 who are enrolled in nonpublic schools. A request for

part-time attendance must be submitted by a parent or guardian

of the child with a disability and may be made only to those

public schools located in the district where the child

attending the nonpublic school resides; however, nothing in

this Section shall be construed as prohibiting an agreement

between the district where the child resides and another public

school district to provide special educational services if such

an arrangement is deemed more convenient and economical.

Special education and related services must be provided in

accordance with the student's IEP no later than 10 school

attendance days after notice is provided to the parents

pursuant to Section 300.503 of Title 34 of the Code of Federal

Regulations and implementing rules adopted by the State Board

of Education. Transportation for students in part time

attendance shall be provided only if required in the child's

individualized educational program on the basis of the child's

disabling condition or as the special education program

location may require.

Beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, a school board

shall post on its Internet website, if any, and incorporate

into its student handbook or newsletter notice that students

with disabilities who do not qualify for an individualized

education program, as required by the federal Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act and implementing provisions of this

Code, may qualify for services under Section 504 of the federal

Rehabilitation Act of 1973 if the child (i) has a physical or

mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major

life activities, (ii) has a record of a physical or mental

impairment, or (iii) is regarded as having a physical or mental

impairment. Such notice shall identify the location and phone

number of the office or agent of the school district to whom

inquiries should be directed regarding the identification,

assessment and placement of such children.

For a school district organized under Article 34 only,

beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, the school district

shall, in collaboration with its primary office overseeing

special education, publish on the school district's publicly

available website any proposed changes to its special education

policies, directives, guidelines, or procedures that impact

the provision of educational or related services to students

with disabilities or the procedural safeguards afforded to

students with disabilities or their parents or guardians made

by the school district or school board. Any policy, directive,

guideline, or procedural change that impacts those provisions

or safeguards that is authorized by the school district's

primary office overseeing special education or any other

administrative office of the school district must be published

on the school district's publicly available website no later

than 45 days before the adoption of that change. Any policy

directive, guideline, or procedural change that impacts those

provisions or safeguards that is authorized by the school board

must be published on the school district's publicly available

website no later than 30 days before the date of presentation

to the school board for adoption. The school district's website

must allow for virtual public comments on proposed special

education policy, directive, guideline, or procedural changes

that impact the provision of educational or related services to

students with disabilities or the procedural safeguards

afforded to students with disabilities or their parents or

guardians from the date of the notification of the proposed

change on the website until the date the change is adopted by

the school district or until the date the change is presented

to the school board for adoption. After the period for public

comment is closed, the school district must maintain all public

comments for a period of not less than 2 years from the date

the special education change is adopted. The public comments

are subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The school board

shall, at a minimum, advertise the notice of the change and

availability for public comment on its website. The State Board

of Education may add additional reporting requirements for the

district beyond policy, directive, guideline, or procedural

changes that impact the provision of educational or related

services to students with disabilities or the procedural

safeguards afforded to students with disabilities or their

parents or guardians if the State Board determines it is in the

best interest of the students enrolled in the district

receiving special education services.

School boards shall immediately provide upon request by any

person written materials and other information that indicates

the specific policies, procedures, rules and regulations

regarding the identification, evaluation or educational

placement of children with disabilities under Section 14-8.02

of the School Code. Such information shall include information

regarding all rights and entitlements of such children under

this Code, and of the opportunity to present complaints with

respect to any matter relating to educational placement of the

student, or the provision of a free appropriate public

education and to have an impartial due process hearing on the

complaint. The notice shall inform the parents or guardian in

the parents' or guardian's native language, unless it is

clearly not feasible to do so, of their rights and all

procedures available pursuant to this Act and federal Public

Law 94-142; it shall be the responsibility of the State

Superintendent to develop uniform notices setting forth the

procedures available under this Act and federal Public Law

94-142, as amended, to be used by all school boards. The notice

shall also inform the parents or guardian of the availability

upon request of a list of free or low-cost legal and other

relevant services available locally to assist parents or

guardians in exercising rights or entitlements under this Code.

For a school district organized under Article 34 only, the

school district must make the entirety of its special education

Procedural Manual and any other guidance documents pertaining

to special education publicly available, in print and on the

school district's website, in both English and Spanish. Upon

request, the school district must make the Procedural Manual

and other guidance documents available in print in any other

language and accessible for individuals with disabilities.

Any parent or guardian who is deaf, or does not normally

communicate using spoken English, who participates in a meeting

with a representative of a local educational agency for the

purposes of developing an individualized educational program

shall be entitled to the services of an interpreter.

No student with a disability or, in a school district

organized under Article 34 of this Code, child with a learning

disability may be denied promotion, graduation or a general

diploma on the basis of failing a minimal competency test when

such failure can be directly related to the disabling condition

of the student. For the purpose of this Act, "minimal

competency testing" is defined as tests which are constructed

to measure the acquisition of skills to or beyond a certain

defined standard.

Effective July 1, 1966, high school districts are

financially responsible for the education of pupils with

disabilities who are residents in their districts when such

pupils have reached age 15 but may admit children with

disabilities into special educational facilities without

regard to graduation from the eighth grade after such pupils

have reached the age of 14 1/2 years. Upon a pupil with a

disability attaining the age of 14 1/2 years, it shall be the

duty of the elementary school district in which the pupil

resides to notify the high school district in which the pupil

resides of the pupil's current eligibility for special

education services, of the pupil's current program, and of all

evaluation data upon which the current program is based. After

an examination of that information the high school district may

accept the current placement and all subsequent timelines shall

be governed by the current individualized educational program;

or the high school district may elect to conduct its own

evaluation and multidisciplinary staff conference and

formulate its own individualized educational program, in which

case the procedures and timelines contained in Section 14-8.02

shall apply.

(Source: P.A. 99-143, eff. 7-27-15; 99-592, eff. 7-22-16;

100-201, eff. 8-18-17; 100-1112, eff. 8-28-18.)

(105 ILCS 5/14-8.02f)

Sec. 14-8.02f. Individualized education program meeting

protections ; municipality with 1,000,000 or more inhabitants.

(a) (Blank). This Section only applies to school districts

organized under Article 34 of this Code.

(b) This subsection (b) applies only to a school district

organized under Article 34. No later than 10 calendar days

prior to a child's individualized education program meeting or

as soon as possible if a meeting is scheduled within 10

calendar days with written parental consent, the school board

or school personnel must provide the child's parent or guardian

with a written notification of the services that require a

specific data collection procedure from the school district for

services related to the child's individualized education

program. The notification must indicate, with a checkbox,

whether specific data has been collected for the child's

individualized education program services. For purposes of

this subsection (b), individualized education program services

must include, but are not limited to, paraprofessional support,

an extended school year, transportation, therapeutic day

school, and services for specific learning disabilities.

(c) No later than 3 5 school days prior to a child's

individualized education program eligibility meeting or

meeting to review a child's individualized education program,

or as soon as possible if an individualized education program

meeting is scheduled within 3 school days with the written

consent of the child's parent or guardian, the local education

agency must provide the child's parent or guardian with copies

of all written material that will be considered by the

individualized education program 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 individualized education program, a copy of all

individualized education program components that will be

discussed by the individualized education program team, other

than the components related to the educational and related

service minutes proposed for the child and the child's

educational placement. as soon as possible if a meeting is

scheduled within 5 school days with written parental consent,

the school board or school personnel must provide the child's

parent or guardian with a draft individualized education

program. The draft must contain all relevant information

collected about the child and must include, but is not limited

to, the program's goals, draft accommodations and

modifications, copies of all conducted evaluations, and any

collected data.

(d) Local education agencies must make related service logs

that record the type of related services administered under the

child's individualized education program 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 individualized education program 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 individualized education program of

his or her ability to request those related service logs. If a

child's individualized education program team determines that

certain services are required in order for the child to receive

a free, appropriate public education and those services are not

administered implemented within 10 school days after a date or

frequency set forth by the child's individualized education

program the team's determination, then the local education

agency school board shall provide the child's parent or

guardian with written notification that those services have not

yet been administered to the child. The notification must be

provided to the child's parent or guardian within 3 school days

of the local education agency's non-compliance with the child's

individualized education program and must include information

on the parent's or guardian's ability to request compensatory

services. In this subsection (d), "school days" does not

include days where a child is absent from school for reasons

unrelated to a lack of individualized education program

services.

(e) The State Board of Education may create a telephone

hotline to address complaints regarding the special education

services or lack of special education services of a school

district subject to this Section. If a hotline is created, it

must be available to all students enrolled in the school

district, parents or guardians of those students, and school

personnel. If a hotline is created, any complaints received

through the hotline must be registered and recorded with the

State Board's monitor of special education policies. No

student, parent or guardian, or member of school personnel may

be retaliated against for submitting a complaint through a

telephone hotline created by the State Board under this

subsection (e).

(f) A school district subject to this Section may not use

any measure that would prevent or delay an individualized

education program team from adding a service to the program or

create a time restriction in which a service is prohibited from

being added to the program. The school district may not build

functions into its computer software that would remove any

services from a student's individualized education program

without the approval of the program team and may not prohibit

the program team from adding a service to the program.

(Source: P.A. 100-993, eff. 8-20-18.)

(105 ILCS 5/14-8.02g new)

Sec. 14-8.02g. Response to scientific, research-based

intervention.

(a) In this Section, "response to scientific,

research-based intervention" or "multi-tiered systems of

support" means a tiered process of school support that utilizes

differentiated instructional strategies for students, provides

students with scientific, research-based interventions,

continuously monitors student performance using

scientifically, research-based progress monitoring

instruments, and makes educational decisions based on a

student's response to the interventions. Response to

scientific, research-based intervention or multi-tiered

systems of support use a problem-solving method to define the

problem, analyze the problem using data to determine why there

is a discrepancy between what is expected and what is

occurring, establish one or more student performance goals,

develop an intervention plan to address the performance goals,

and delineate how the student's progress will be monitored and

how implementation integrity will be ensured.

(b) A school district must utilize response to scientific,

research-based intervention or multi-tiered systems of support

as part of an evaluation procedure to determine if a child is

eligible for special education services due to a specific

learning disability. A school district may utilize the data

generated during the response to scientific, research-based

intervention or multi-tiered systems of support process in an

evaluation to determine if a child is eligible for special

education services due to any category of disability.

(c) The response to scientific, research-based

intervention or multi-tiered systems of support process must

involve a collaborative team approach, with the parent or

guardian of a student being part of the collaborative team. The

parent or guardian of a student must be involved in the data

sharing and decision-making processes of support under this

Section. The State Board of Education may provide guidance to a

school district and identify available resources related to

facilitating parental or guardian participation in the

response to scientific, research-based intervention or

multi-tiered systems of support process.

(d) Nothing in this Section affects the responsibility of a

school district to identify, locate, and evaluate children with

disabilities who are in need of special education services in

accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities

Education Improvement Act of 2004, this Code, or any applicable

federal or State rules.

Section 10. The Illinois School Student Records Act is

amended by changing Section 2 as follows:

(105 ILCS 10/2) (from Ch. 122, par. 50-2)

Sec. 2. As used in this Act,

(a) "Student" means any person enrolled or previously

enrolled in a school.

(b) "School" means any public preschool, day care center,

kindergarten, nursery, elementary or secondary educational

institution, vocational school, special educational facility

or any other elementary or secondary educational agency or

institution and any person, agency or institution which

maintains school student records from more than one school, but

does not include a private or non-public school.

(c) "State Board" means the State Board of Education.

(d) "School Student Record" means any writing or other

recorded information concerning a student and by which a

student may be individually identified, maintained by a school

or at its direction or by an employee of a school, regardless

of how or where the information is stored. The following shall

not be deemed school student records under this Act: writings

or other recorded information maintained by an employee of a

school or other person at the direction of a school for his or

her exclusive use; provided that all such writings and other

recorded information are destroyed not later than the student's

graduation or permanent withdrawal from the school; and

provided further that no such records or recorded information

may be released or disclosed to any person except a person

designated by the school as a substitute unless they are first

incorporated in a school student record and made subject to all

of the provisions of this Act. School student records shall not

include information maintained by law enforcement

professionals working in the school.

(e) "Student Permanent Record" means the minimum personal

information necessary to a school in the education of the

student and contained in a school student record. Such

information may include the student's name, birth date,

address, grades and grade level, parents' names and addresses,

attendance records, and such other entries as the State Board

may require or authorize.

(f) "Student Temporary Record" means all information

contained in a school student record but not contained in the

student permanent record. Such information may include family

background information, intelligence test scores, aptitude

test scores, psychological and personality test results,

teacher evaluations, and other information of clear relevance

to the education of the student, all subject to regulations of

the State Board. The information shall include information

provided under Section 8.6 of the Abused and Neglected Child

Reporting Act and information contained in service logs

maintained by a local education agency under subsection (d) of

Section 14-8.02f of the School Code. In addition, the student

temporary record shall include information regarding serious

disciplinary infractions that resulted in expulsion,

suspension, or the imposition of punishment or sanction. For

purposes of this provision, serious disciplinary infractions

means: infractions involving drugs, weapons, or bodily harm to

another.

(g) "Parent" means a person who is the natural parent of

the student or other person who has the primary responsibility

for the care and upbringing of the student. All rights and

privileges accorded to a parent under this Act shall become

exclusively those of the student upon his 18th birthday,

graduation from secondary school, marriage or entry into

military service, whichever occurs first. Such rights and

privileges may also be exercised by the student at any time

with respect to the student's permanent school record.

(Source: P.A. 92-295, eff. 1-1-02.)

Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon

becoming law.