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Public Act 097-0624
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| HB0190 Re-Enrolled | LRB097 02933 NHT 42957 b |
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AN ACT concerning education.
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Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
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represented in the General Assembly:
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Section 5. The School Code is amended by changing Section |
27A-4 as follows:
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(105 ILCS 5/27A-4)
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Sec. 27A-4. General Provisions.
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(a) The General Assembly does not intend to alter or amend |
the provisions
of any court-ordered desegregation plan in |
effect for any school district. A
charter school shall be |
subject to all federal and State laws and
constitutional |
provisions prohibiting discrimination on the basis of
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disability, race, creed, color, gender, national origin, |
religion, ancestry,
marital status, or need for special |
education services.
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(b) The total number of charter schools operating under |
this Article at any
one time shall not exceed 120. Not more |
than 70 charter
schools
shall operate at any one time in any |
city having a population exceeding
500,000, with at least 5 |
charter schools devoted exclusively to students from |
low-performing or overcrowded schools operating at any one time |
in that city; and not more than 45
charter schools shall |
operate at any one time in the remainder of the State, with not
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more than one charter school that
has been initiated by a board |
of education, or
by an intergovernmental agreement between or |
among boards of education,
operating at any one
time in the |
school district where the charter school is located. In |
addition to these charter schools, up to but no more than 5 |
charter schools devoted exclusively to re-enrolled high school |
dropouts and/or students 16 or 15 years old at risk of dropping |
out may operate at any one time in any city having a population |
exceeding 500,000. Notwithstanding any provision to the |
contrary in subsection (b) of Section 27A-5 of this Code, each |
such dropout charter may operate up to 15 campuses within the |
city. Any of these dropout charters may have a maximum of 1,875 |
enrollment seats, any one of the campuses of the dropout |
charter may have a maximum of 165 enrollment seats, and each |
campus of the dropout charter must be operated by the same |
legal entity as that for which the charter is approved and |
certified.
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For purposes of implementing this Section, the State Board |
shall assign a
number to each charter submission it receives |
under Section 27A-6 for its
review and certification, based on |
the chronological order in which the
submission is received by |
it. The State Board shall promptly notify local
school boards |
when the maximum numbers of certified charter schools |
authorized
to operate have been reached.
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(c) No charter shall be granted under this Article that |
would convert any
existing private, parochial, or non-public |
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school to a charter school.
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(d) Enrollment in a charter school shall be open to any |
pupil who resides
within the geographic boundaries of the area |
served by the local school board, provided that the board of |
education in a city having a population exceeding 500,000 may |
designate attendance boundaries for no more than one-third of |
the charter schools permitted in the city if the board of |
education determines that attendance boundaries are needed to |
relieve overcrowding or to better serve low-income and at-risk |
students. Students residing within an attendance boundary may |
be given priority for enrollment, but must not be required to |
attend the charter school.
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(e) Nothing in this Article shall prevent 2 or more local |
school boards from
jointly
issuing a charter to a single shared |
charter school, provided that all of the
provisions of this |
Article are met as to those local school boards.
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(f) No local school board shall require any employee of the |
school district
to be employed in a charter school.
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(g) No local school board shall require any pupil residing |
within the
geographic boundary of its district to enroll in a |
charter school.
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(h) If there are more eligible applicants for enrollment in |
a charter school
than there are spaces available, successful |
applicants shall be selected by
lottery. However, priority |
shall be given to siblings of pupils enrolled in
the charter |
school and to pupils who were enrolled in the charter school |
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the
previous school year, unless expelled for cause, and |
priority may be given to pupils residing within the charter |
school's attendance boundary, if a boundary has been designated |
by the board of education in a city having a population |
exceeding 500,000. Dual enrollment at both a
charter school and |
a public school or non-public school shall not be allowed.
A |
pupil who is suspended or expelled from a charter school shall |
be deemed to
be suspended or expelled from the public schools |
of the school district in
which the pupil resides. |
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this subsection |
(h), any charter school with a mission exclusive to educating |
high school dropouts may grant priority restrict admission to |
students who are high school dropouts and/or students 16 or 15 |
years old at risk of dropping out and any charter school with a |
mission exclusive to educating students from low-performing or |
overcrowded schools may restrict admission to students who are |
from low-performing or overcrowded schools. "Priority |
admission" for charter schools exclusively devoted to |
re-enrolled dropouts or students at risk of dropping out means |
a minimum of 90% of students enrolled shall be high school |
dropouts.
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(i) (Blank).
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(j) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the |
contrary, a
school district in a city having a population |
exceeding 500,000 shall not
have a duty to collectively bargain |
with an exclusive representative of its
employees over |
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decisions to grant or deny a charter school proposal
under |
Section 27A-8 of this Code, decisions to renew or revoke a |
charter
under Section 27A-9 of this Code, and the impact of |
these decisions,
provided that nothing in this Section shall |
have the effect of negating,
abrogating, replacing, reducing, |
diminishing, or limiting in any way
employee rights, |
guarantees, or privileges granted in Sections 2, 3, 7, 8,
10, |
14, and 15 of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act.
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(k) In this Section: |
"Low-performing school" means a public school in a school |
district organized under Article 34 of this Code that enrolls |
students in any of grades kindergarten through 8 and that is |
ranked within the lowest 10% of schools in that district in |
terms of the percentage of students meeting or exceeding |
standards on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. |
"Overcrowded school" means a public school in a school |
district organized under Article 34 of this Code that (i) |
enrolls students in any of grades kindergarten through 8, (ii) |
has a percentage of low-income students of 70% or more, as |
identified in the most recently available School Report Card |
published by the State Board of Education, and (iii) is |
determined by the Chicago Board of Education to be in the most |
severely overcrowded 5% of schools in the district. On or |
before November 1 of each year, the Chicago Board of Education |
shall file a report with the State Board of Education on which |
schools in the district meet the definition of "overcrowded |