Priority Briefings

Effective this year, school boards will no longer have to adopt Prevailing Wage Act resolutions in June. Recent amendments to the Act made this change and others but did not modify the Act’s central provision that public bodies must require their contractors for public works to pay the locally prevailing wages. Public Act 100-1177, passed […]

• Posted on: May 16 2019
• By: admin

Pursuant to law, every school board must hold its organizational meeting no later than 28 days after the consolidated election. Further, new board members cannot be seated until after the official canvass of the results by the county election authority. The deadline for the canvass is not until 21 days after the election. Therefore, the […]

• Posted on: Mar 1 2019
• By: admin

TRS has just issued Employer Bulletin 19-12 dated February 2019, which is available on the TRS website at: https://www.trsil.org/employers/employer-bulletins/FY19-12.  This bulletin requires that all TRS employers submit all grandfathered individual employment contracts and collective bargaining agreements (“CBAs”) to the TRS CBA/Contract Collection Portal by March 29, 2019.  Grandfathered contracts and CBAs are those entered into […]

• Posted on: Feb 7 2019
• By: admin

On Friday, November 16, 2018, the U.S. Department of Education issued proposed Regulations that would alter what constitutes sexual harassment, what triggers a duty to respond, due process afforded to individuals and procedural responses to complaints, among other things.  The Regulations are available for public comment for 60 days. During President Obama’s administration in 2011, […]

• Posted on: Dec 5 2018
• By: admin

Since the change in the law providing for school board candidate filings to be handled by the County Clerk rather than at the local school districts, the Cook County Clerk has been able to handle the volume of filings by using multiple sites in the suburbs, as well as the Clerk’s central office in Chicago.  […]

• Posted on: Dec 4 2018
• By: admin

On September 20, 2018, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Oswald v. Hamer, a lawsuit challenging the facial constitutionality of Section 15-86 of the Property Tax Code, the nonprofit hospital property tax exemption legislation enacted by the General Assembly in 2012.   That section created a new test for tax exemptions -weighing […]

• Posted on: Sep 25 2018
• By: admin

This morning, the United States Supreme Court issued its anticipated decision regarding fair share agreements and the related deductions from the wages of public sector employees.  (Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, et al.)  The Court determined that an “agency fee” or “closed shop” which compels payment to a […]

• Posted on: Jun 27 2018
• By: admin

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has released long awaited updated guidance on medication administration in schools which can be found at https://www.isbe.net/Documents/Guidance-on-Medication-June-2018.pdf The new guidance gives school districts 13 points to include in their school medication polices: (1)    a Registered Nurse (“RN”) should begin the process of reviewing any request to administer medication at school; […]

• Posted on: Jun 25 2018
• By: admin

On April 20, 2018, the U.S. Department of Education released a Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQ”) document relating to the privacy of student-identifying photographs and surveillance videos.  The FAQ, located here, addresses multiple aspects of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”). As to whether photographs or videos could be considered “education records” or student records, […]

• Posted on: Apr 27 2018
• By: admin

Under the Illinois School Student Records Act (“ISSRA”), certain school student records information, called “directory information,” which includes student names, addresses and other information as identified by the Illinois State Board of Education (“ISBE”), can only be released in accordance with ISBE rules.  Under the ISBE rules, unless a parent requests that some or all […]

• Posted on: Mar 29 2018
• By: admin