That Pesky RTI and Special Education Bill

UPDATED (08/26/2019)
On Friday, August 23, 2019, Governor Pritzker took action to sign this bill into law.  HB 3586 is now a Public Act.  IAASE will work with Senator Koehler and Representative Crespo to make sure that the necessary fixes are implemented during the veto session in the Fall so that the detrimental impact of this legislation are minimized.  Further, IAASE is working with ISBE Leadership to develop interim guidance for school districts on this topic.

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During the spring legislative session, lots of bills get drafted and rewritten and passed. Some get moved to another house without action and others get amended so quickly that we have whiplash. In some situations, errors occur, but members have made promises to one group of people or another. With the clock expiring on the session, members agree to pass the bill and "fix it in veto session." This is the case with HB 3586 (Koehler / Crespo).

Here is what the bill was supposed to do:

1. For CPS Only, requires the District to post changes to its special education policies or procedures on its website. (Just a note that the district already does this).
2. For CPS Only, before any procedural manual can be adopted, it must allow for public comment and those public comments must be kept on record for two years (for other districts, when approving a manual like this, you need to have a board hearing, but the comment period is not as extensive).
3. For CPS Only, requires the District to give parents ten days notice about any data that needs to be collected for things to occur at the meeting (this is in specific response to the Public Inquiry issues where there were challenges with people coming to meetings and not being able to receive ESY services because there was not enough data to support this).
4. For CPS Only, requires the District to send home copies of all documents that will be reviewed at the meeting.
5. For CPS Only, requires the District to keep service logs for each provider and to make these service logs available at each IEP meeting and to notify parents about these logs at the beginning of each year.  And, if the services are not implemented consistent with the IEP, the District must notify the parents about the fact that they have not been implemented as soon as possible.
6. For CPS Only, requires the District to utilize RTI.

While the leadership of IAASE is always challenged by bills that impact ONLY the Chicago Public Schools, this one was especially challenging.  And that's because of the "drafting error" that occurred in the process of writing the bill.  That drafting error makes numbers 4, 5, and 6 applicable to EVERY SCHOOL DISTRICT in the state.  That means that the following will be true should Governor Pritzker decide to sign this into law:

1. ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS will be required to send home copies of all documents that will be reviewed at the meeting.
2. ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS will be required to keep service logs for each provider and to make these service logs available at each IEP meeting and to notify parents about these logs at the beginning of each year.  And, if the services are not implemented consistent with the IEP, the District must notify the parents about the fact that they have not been implemented as soon as possible.
3. ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS will be required to utilize RTI.

Some of you might already do these things in your districts (as a matter of fact, all of us were required to submit an RTI plan to the state more than ten years ago).  But the other provisions in this bill are dangerous and worrisome to the say the least.

IAASE has been working with the sponsors of the bill (Koehler and Crespo) to make sure this is addressed in the Fall veto session if it is signed by Governor Pritzker.  Without any fixes, the bill will become effective on the day that the Governor signs it into law.  If that happens, we will work with the ISBE on temporary fixes (between the signing date and the Fall veto session) and send you all information about this as it becomes available.