Good afternoon,
Over the past few weeks, Governor Blagojevich has signed several education bills
into law. In this message, we bring you up to date on the status
of bills and resolutions that came out of the last session of the General
Assembly. In addition, the message includes:
·
Waiver
Procedures
·
·
State Board
Delays
Action on
GED fees
·
NCLB Appeal Process
·
FY2004 Expenditure
Reports
·
Bills signed into law
·
Register for Superintendent’s regional conferences
·
News
stories of interest
Changes To Waiver Procedure Effective August
20
On August 20 Governor Blagojevich
signed Senate Bill 206 into law and it is effective immediately (Public
Act 93-0557). As I noted in my
weekly message of August 8, this legislation makes changes in the way in which
eligible entities must apply for waivers and modifications of law and
rules. In particular, the Act
requires that public hearings held by local boards of education to consider
applications be held on days other than those used for regular board meetings
and that the district provide written information to its State legislators in
advance of the public hearing.
With the enactment of P.A. 93-0557, any application considered at a
public hearing that was held on a regular board meeting day after
P.A. 93-0557 makes the following
immediate additions to the waiver process described in Section 2-3.25g of
the School Code (105 ILCS 2-3.25g):
Please note that all other
public notice requirements and deadlines for the waiver process were not
affected by the passage of this new Act.
They are still in effect and must be followed whenever a district
submits an application for a waiver or modification of law and
rules.
As a reminder, the next deadline
for submission of a waiver of the School Code is
Here is a status report on legislation from the 93rd
General Assembly.
The full text of Public Act
93-0557 is available at http://www.legis.state.il.us/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=093-0557
Information on the
waiver/modification process is available on the State Board’s website at
http://www.isbe.net/isbewaivers/default.htm. We will
be updating the website and our waiver forms over the next few days. If you have any questions, please call
Winnie Tuthill or Shelley Helton at (217)
782-5270.
Deadline Approaches For Making Corrections To State
Test Data
Please remember that the firm deadline for accepting
corrections to state test data is
The following is an excerpt from instructions you
received with your test reports:
“You may correct errors by marking needed changes to
the reports. Most mistakes occur
because students have been misclassified (e.g., your reports have no students
coded as having IEPs). Changes for
individual students should be marked on the School Roster. Make copies for your records and return
the originals to:
Pearson Educational
Measurement
Attention:
ISAT (or PSAE or IMAGE) Reporting M/S
160
Include a cover memo that describes the changes and is
signed by the person authorizing the changes. Revised reports will be provided when
the changes are finalized. If you
have any questions, call PEM at 1-800-627-7990, state code 814, or call the
Student Assessment Division at the Illinois State Board of Education, at
217-782-4823.”
State Board Defers Action On Raising GED Fees
At its meeting Wednesday, the State Board decided to
defer action on raising fees for the GED examination while it explores whether
there are other options that will allow the program to remain in operation.
Without the fee increase, or revenue from some other source, the high school
equivalency program -- which served some 23,000 persons last year – will close
down
Agency representatives will meet with representatives
from the adult education community to discuss alternatives to the fee increase.
At the board meeting, I presented to the board a “worst case scenario” fee
increase schedule that would raise the application fee from the current $35 to
$80 and would also increase fees for re-testing, for duplicate certificates and
for transcripts.
The American Council on Education of Washington, D.C.,
owns the GED tests and contracts with state education agencies to administer
it. The Illinois GED testing
program has been in existence since the 1940’s, and has been the responsibility
of ISBE (in cooperation with ROE’s) since 1962. ISBE has administered the
program in
A fact
sheet regarding the Illinois GED testing program is in a
document detailing other recent cuts which can be viewed at:
http://www.isbe.net/news/pdf/staff_reductions_plan_072203.pdf
Legislative
update
Follow the link below for a status
report on education related legislation from the 93rd General
Assembly:
http://www.isbe.net/messages/bills.htm
Also, the Governor has signed into law the
long-awaited changes to the citizenship requirements for educators.
HB 3587 can be viewed in its entirety on
the General Assembly website; however, in summary, the bill removes the
requirement for obtaining citizenship within six years and requires only that a
certification candidate who is not a citizen verify his or her intent to become
a citizen. No subsequent follow-up is
necessary.
General
Information
ISBE has developed a new form (ISBE 73-91) that will
serve as the “Notice of Intent to Become a United States Citizen.” A copy
of this form is attached as a PDF file and you will be able to download it from
our website www.isbe.net/messages/F73-91.pdf
Targeted
Information
There are essentially five groups of
educators who are affected by this legislation.
·
Our immediate goal is to assure
that individuals who would otherwise be
employed during this school year are not prohibited from doing so
because of the citizenship issue.
·
Those individuals whose
registration has been held pending the Governor’s action can be employed for the
current school year.
·
All individuals whose registration
or applications have been held pending resolution of the citizenship issue
should be notified immediately that they will need to sign the “Notice of
Intent” form and submit it to the State Board through your office.
·
Please work with your districts to
expedite these cases and accommodate individual situations. If you have
questions, please call us on the ROE line.
·
Teachers and other educators whose
certificates were not up for registration
this year can file the “notice of intent” now or at the time they
renew their certificates.
o These individuals may request a
new certificate that excludes the citizenship restriction; this should be done
by submitting a request for a duplicate certificate and paying the appropriate
fee.
o However, even if these
individuals do not request a new certificate, the citizenship restriction on
their certificate will no longer have any validity. Once an educator has
filed the “Notice of Intent to Become a U.S. Citizen”, the citizenship
requirement has been met and the certificate remains valid as long as the holder
meets requirements for periodic renewal.
·
New certificate holders whose applications
were submitted prior to the change in law should submit a signed “Notice of Intent” at
the time they first register their certificate(s). Their certificates will
not include the citizenship language that has been included in the
past.
·
Applicants who apply now and who check the
form to indicate that they are not a citizen
must provide evidence they are legally present and eligible for
employment as required in the past. They must also complete the Notice of Intent
form.
·
Individuals whose certificates have been canceled in the past
because they did not become citizens within the required time period may request
that the certificate be reissued. We do not have the resources to seek out
these individuals, but we will notify key groups to make it know that this
option is available. Educators in this group should file the Notice of
Intent and ask their regional superintendent to forward a request for review of
the case by the Certification and Professional Development Department.
Although each situation will be decided on an individual basis, the guiding
principle will be to ensure that the educator is not denied a certificate
because of the citizenship issue. Individuals who otherwise qualify for
the certificate must pay back registration fees but they will not be required to
pay another application fee.
We hope this information is sufficient to
allow you to move forward quickly and appropriately. However, if you
need additional help, let us know via the ROE phone line or an email to Bob
Bigham or Lee Patton.
Public Act 93-470 (Senate Bill 878 of 2003) Allows
an Appeal Process
The Illinois General Assembly
passed and Governor Blagojevich recently signed into law two public acts which
will assist Illinois in implementing the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001.
Senate Bill 878 on school accountability (now Public Act 93-0470) and
House Bill 2352 on student assessment (now Public Act 93-0426), sponsored
respectively by Senator Miguel DelValle and Representative Jerry Mitchell, have
now become state law.
One aspect of Public Act 93-0470
outlines the right to appeal school or district status levels, recognition
levels, or corrective action. The
State Board of Education is tasked with processing school and district appeals
through an Appeals Advisory Committee.
Following is the language from
the act specifically addressing appeals:
Following is the language from the act specifically
addressing appeals:
(105 ILCS 5/2-3.25m)
Section
2-3.25m. Appeals. The appeals process outlined in this Section applies to all
appeals from school districts pertaining to school or district status levels,
recognition levels, or corrective action.
The State Board of Education shall provide notice and an opportunity for
hearing to the affected school district.
The hearing shall take place not be later than 30 calendar days following
receipt of the written appeal. The
appeals advisory committee created as specified in the Section may extend the
hearing under special circumstances, in consultation with the State
Superintendent of Education. The
State Board of Education may take into account exceptional or uncontrollable
circumstances.
The
State Board of Education shall process school and district appeals through an
appeals advisory committee. The
committee shall be composed of 9 members appointed by the State Superintendent
of Education as follows:
(1)
One representative of
each of 2 professional teachers’ organizations.
(2)
Two school
administrators employed in the public schools of this State who have been
nominated by an administrator organization.
(3)
One member of an
organization that represents school principals.
(4)
One member of an
organization that represents both parents and
teachers.
(5)
One representative of
the business community of this State who has been nominated by a statewide
business organization.
(6)
One representative of
City of
(7)
One member of the
public.
Five
members of the committee shall serve for terms of 2 years, and 4 members shall
serve for terms of 3 years. The
State Superintendent of Education shall appoint initial members on or before
July 1, 2003. The committee shall
annually elect one member as chairperson.
The
committee shall hear appeals and, within 30 calendar days after a hearing, make
recommendations for action to the State Superintendent of Education. The committee shall recommend action to
the State Superintendent of Education on all appeals. The State Board of Education shall make
all final determinations.
I am in the process of making appointments to the
committee. It is my intent to call
an initial meeting of the committee, to be held once the forty-five day window
for clarifying data discrepancies has come to an end on September
15th. At that time the committee
will determine its chairperson and terms of office, and create working
guidelines.
Just as you considered any data discrepancies very
carefully, please consider this process carefully as well. Should your district or one of the
schools within your district seek an appeal, please send me a letter explaining
rationale and details as soon as possible.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me or Gail Lieberman at
217/782-5053.
Reminder:
Registration Deadline Draws Near
Registration for the upcoming
regional superintendents meetings is August 25. Please remember that on-site
registration will not be
available. Participants may
register on-line at http://www.isbe.net/pdf/suptconf_reg.pdf and agendas for the meetings may be accessed at http://www.isbe.net/pdf/suptconf_agenda.pdf.
Newsclips
Robert Schiller
State Superintendent
of Education
statesup@isbe.net