Public Act 100-1043
 
HB4442 EnrolledLRB100 17751 AXK 32926 b


  
    AN ACT concerning education.
  
 
    WHEREAS, Research-based prevention and wellness promotion 
efforts that strengthen positive parenting practices and  
enhance a child's resilience in the face of adversity have been 
shown to have a significant impact on a child's mental health, 
physical health, and educational outcomes; and
 
    WHEREAS, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
define positive parenting skills as good communication,  
appropriate discipline, and responding to a child's physical 
and emotional needs; and
 
    WHEREAS, Studies in the last decade have shown that 
well-designed programs created to promote healthy cognitive,  
emotional, and social development can improve the prospects and  
quality of life of many children; and
 
    WHEREAS, Parenting programs have been shown to provide 
critical information on child development and safety, promote 
positive parenting behaviors, teach effective discipline 
strategies, alter adverse family patterns, and reduce levels of  
child abuse and neglect; and
 
    WHEREAS, Positive parenting practices are directly linked 
to adaptive behaviors in children and can buffer adverse 
outcomes, even amongst at-risk families; and
 
    WHEREAS, While positive parenting strategies can promote 
adjustment and achievement, child abuse and neglect can 
interrupt healthy development in children and can lead to 
maladaptive functioning; and
 
    WHEREAS, In the first major study of child abuse and 
neglect in 20 years, researchers with the National Academy of 
Sciences reported that the damaging consequences of abuse can 
reshape a child's brain (resulting in consequences that last 
throughout his or her life), influence the child's amygdala 
(the part of the brain that regulates emotions, particularly 
fear and anxiety), and change how the functioning prefrontal 
cortex works (the part of the brain responsible for thinking, 
planning, reasoning, and decision-making), which can lead to 
behavioral and academic problems; and
 
    WHEREAS, Research shows an association between child 
maltreatment and a broad range of social problems, including 
substance abuse, violence, criminal behavior, teenage 
pregnancy, anxiety, sexually transmitted diseases, smoking, 
obesity, and diabetes; and
 
    WHEREAS, Child abuse and neglect is a serious health 
problem that costs the United States $103 billion annually, 
which includes $33 billion in direct costs for foster care 
services, hospitalization, mental health treatment, and law 
enforcement and $70 billion in indirect costs, including 
productivity, chronic health problems, and special education;  
and
 
    WHEREAS, Nobel prize-winning economist James J. Heckman 
and others have shown that for every dollar devoted to the 
nurturing of young children, the need for greater government 
spending on remedial education, teenage pregnancy, and prison 
incarceration may be eliminated; and
 
    WHEREAS, Researchers have found that, left untreated, the 
effects of child abuse and neglect can profoundly influence a 
victim's physical and mental health, emotions and impulses, 
achievements in school, and relationships formed as a child and 
as an adult; and
 
    WHEREAS, The American Academy of Pediatrics' Psychological 
Maltreatment Clinical Report posits that emotional abuse is 
linked with mental illness, delinquency, aggression, school 
troubles, and lifelong relationship problems in children;  
these effects of ill-treatment on a child's brain and 
behavioral development are not static and can be reversed with 
quick intervention and positive changes in a child's 
environment; the negative changes present in a child's brain 
can be countered by positive brain changes that take place when  
the abuse ends and when the child is given the support he or  
she requires; parenting education is an effective way to  
prevent abuse and mental illness before it starts; therefore
 
    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 Section 
27-23.1 as follows:
 



    (105 ILCS 5/27-23.1)  (from Ch. 122, par. 27-23.1)



    Sec. 27-23.1. Parenting education.  
    (a) The State Board of Education must assist each school 
district that offers an evidence-based parenting education 
model. School districts may provide
instruction in parenting 
education for grades 6 through 12 and include such
instruction 
in the courses of study regularly taught therein.
School 
districts may give regular school credit for satisfactory 
completion
by the student of such courses.

    As used in this subsection (a) section, "parenting 
education" means and includes
instruction in the following:

        (1) Child growth and development, including prenatal 
    development.

        (2) Childbirth and child care.

        (3) Family structure, function and management.

        (4) Prenatal and postnatal care for mothers and 
    infants.

        (5) Prevention of child abuse.

        (6) The physical, mental, emotional, social, economic 
    and psychological
aspects of interpersonal and family 
    relationships.

        (7) Parenting skill development.

    The State Board of Education shall assist those districts 
offering
parenting education instruction, upon request, in 
developing instructional
materials, training teachers, and 
establishing appropriate time allotments
for each of the areas 
included in such instruction.

    School districts may offer parenting education courses 
during that period
of the day which is not part of the regular 
school day.  Residents of
the school district may enroll in such 
courses.  The school board may
establish fees and collect such 
charges as may be necessary for attendance
at such courses in 
an amount not to exceed the per capita cost of the
operation 
thereof, except that the board may waive all or part of such

charges if it determines that the individual is indigent or 
that the
educational needs of the individual requires his or 
her attendance at such courses.

    (b) Beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, from 
appropriations made for the purposes of this Section, the State 
Board of Education shall implement and administer a 3-year 
pilot program supporting the health and wellness 
student-learning requirement by utilizing a unit of 
instruction on parenting education in participating school 
districts that maintain grades 9 through 12, to be determined 
by the participating school districts. The program is 
encouraged to include, but is not be limited to, instruction on 
(i) family structure, function, and management, (ii) the 
prevention of child abuse, (iii) the physical, mental, 
emotional, social, economic, and psychological aspects of 
interpersonal and family relationships, and (iv) parenting 
education competency development that is aligned to the social 
and emotional learning standards of the student's grade level. 
Instruction under this subsection (b) may be included in the 
Comprehensive Health Education Program set forth under Section 
3 of the Critical Health Problems and Comprehensive Health 
Education Act.  The State Board of Education is authorized to 
make grants to school districts that apply to participate in 
the pilot program under this subsection (b). The State Board of 
Education shall by rule provide for the form of the application 
and criteria to be used and applied in selecting participating 
urban, suburban, and rural school districts. The provisions of 
this subsection (b), other than this sentence, are inoperative 
at the conclusion of the pilot program. 
(Source: P.A. 84-534.)

  
 

    Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon 
becoming law.