The ICNS Electronic Report is back after taking two months off. Again this year school administrators from member schools in the Illinois Coalition of Non-Public Schools (ICNS) will receive the monthly issues of the Electronic Report. The purpose of this Report is to provide brief synopses of developments with the Illinois Coalition of Non-Public Schools, legislative updates, and information of interest to our nonpublic school administrators.  Additional information may be obtained by following the hyperlinks that are imbedded throughout the Report.

 

ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE NEWS

 

In 2007, the General Assembly began in early January and continued throughout the summer in an overtime session trying to achieve an agreeable budget for fiscal year 2008. Below is information on the current status of education issues the Illinois Coalition of Nonpublic Schools (ICNS) and the Catholic Conference of Illinois (CCI) worked on during the 2007 General Assembly.

Letter Writing Campaign - For much of the 2007 session, ICNS and CCI has engaged in an advocacy campaign pushing for state assistance to nonpublic schools. ICNS and CCI have met with many legislative leaders, the Governor and his chief budget staff, and the State Superintendent of Education. We have also coordinated a letter-writing campaign through nonpublic schools in support of our ideas for state assistance to nonpublic schools: reimbursement for state mandates regarding health and safety issues; expanding the tuition tax credit, and increased funding for textbooks and transportation.

In late May, we delivered another letter in support of these ideas to the Governor and the Speaker of the House. This letter was signed by 24 state representatives. There is other state representatives and several state senators also in active support of this effort. We are optimistic that this little campaign has laid the way for some additional funding, and we know these ideas were part of the budget negotiations.

 

Both the Senate and House have now passed a budget, which includes $38 million new dollars that nonpublic schools can access.  Let me share with you how the new money has been appropriated in three different line items:

 

1)    Educational Improvement and School Safety Block Grant:  $10.1 million to reimburse nonpublic schools for "secular textbooks and software, criminal history record checks, and health and safety mandates to the extent that the funds are expended for purely secular purposes."  The reimbursement rate will probably be $39 per pupil.

 

2)    Textbook Loan Program: $14.1 million to reduce the Textbook Loan eligibility cycle from 3 years to 2.  The reimbursement rate will probably remain the same, but grades will be eligible every other year rather than every third year. 

 

3) Transportation Reimbursement Program: $14 million to double the reimbursement from roughly $130 to $260 for parents who live more than one and a half miles from their school and have to drive their children to school.

 

As of the writing of this report, The Governor has yet to sign the budget.

 

Senate Bill 143 (Background Checks) - Passed the Senate and House; awaiting Governor's signature.

This legislation, which is the result of over a year's work, requires fingerprint criminal records checks for state recognized nonpublic school employees, hired after July 1,2007, that have regular, daily contact with children. It also requires these employees to be checked against the Illinois Sex Offender Management Database. ICNS and CCI support this legislation and continue to work with Nonpublic school leaders and child protection staff to ensure we are prepared to implement the background checks. The Governor has not yet signed the bill for the fingerprint background check. But I hope you have been working to help your school initiate the process that will need to be completed on all new hires after July 1. 

The first step in order to receive fingerprint checks is for your school to have an ORI number issued through the Illinois State Police.  For information on receiving and signing this required agreement, call the Illinois State Police at 815-740-5175 and ask for Karen McKenna. After securing the ORI number, you will need to determine who will complete the fingerprint criminal background check. There are a number of qualified business providers that can complete the check for your school. The six dioceses of the Catholic Conference and the Northern Illinois District Lutheran Schools will be recommending to their member schools the services of Accurate Biometrics. They have over 40 locations throughout the State of Illinois.  These locations and times of operation are easily accessed through the current website:  www.accuratebiometrics.com.

 

(Legislative information received from Zach Wichmann, Associate Director for Education, Catholic Conference of Illinois and Illinois Statewide Management School Alliance).

 

EDUCATION IN THE NEWS

 

DOES RELIGIOUS PARTICIPATION INFLUENCE PRIVATE SCHOOL OUTCOMES?

The vast majority of private schools in the United States are sectarian. Thus, when examining education policies that increase private school attendance, such as education vouchers and tuition tax credits, it is important to consider how religion may influence student enrollments and school outcomes. A new paper by Danny Cohen-Zada and William Sander analyzes the impact of both religious affiliation and religiosity on attendance at public, Catholic, Protestant, and non-sectarian private schools. Religiosity is defined as the degree of participation in church-related activities. As expected, the authors conclude that religious families prefer private schools that belong to their own denomination and non-religious families prefer non-sectarian private schools. However, more importantly, the authors show that religiosity has a strong and significant effect on the demand for private schooling. Parents who regularly attend church services are more likely to send their children to private sectarian schools. Studies that fail to account for religiosity and measure only the religious affiliation of families may overstate the positive influence of Catholic schooling, especially since children who grow up in more religious homes tend to have better educational outcomes.

http://www.ncspe.org/list-papers.php

 

 

THE QUICK & EASY GUIDE TO SCHOOL WELLNESS

Healthy Schools Campaign and School Health Corp. are pleased to announce the release of "The Quick & Easy Guide to School Wellness", a multimedia how-to guide filled with comprehensive information, practical advice, tools and resources.  The guide made its debut at the National Association of School Nurses conference in Nashville, Tenn. with positive and enthusiastic reviews from school nurse leaders in attendance. Nearly 500 school nurses requested the guide in the first two days of its release, and hundreds of additional school stakeholders have ordered the guide since its release. The guide, available free of charge to schools and nonprofits, was developed in response to a need for school stakeholders -- nurses, teachers, parents, administrators and students -- to effectively implement the school wellness policies that became mandatory in fall 2006. The guide includes multiple case studies, bonus tip sheets, and a comprehensive set of documents and resources from leading organizations throughout the country. "We want people to understand that they have the power to make their school wellness policy work, to really change things for the better," said Jean Saunders, director of school wellness for the Healthy Schools Campaign. "It doesn't have to be overwhelming. This guide brings together the most important resources in one place and makes it easy to create healthy change one step at a time."

http://healthyschoolscampaign.org/campaign/wellness/index.php

 

WHAT ABOUT RELIGIOUS CHARTER SCHOOLS?

Charter schools are gaining in popularity, with approximately 4,000 now open, enrolling some 1.1 million U.S. children with more participating every year. These schools have filled a need in American society, giving individuals, communities, and local associations a chance to create their own schools -- with tax dollars paying the basic costs. However, a major, unresolved question remains: What about opening and funding religious charter schools? How would localities handle the many complexities of funding charter schools that have a religious, social, and cultural mission? Direct public funding for religious schools is still not legal for K-12 education, writes Lawrence D. Weinberg and Bruce S. Cooper in Education Week. Tax dollars may not be used to support a particular religious ideology, activity, or program. In effect, public tax money cannot be used to endorse religion. Hence, salaries for elementary and secondary school teachers of Bible, Koran, or catechism classes could not be paid from the public purse, if the teachers were endorsing these religious beliefs. How, for example, did a government-sanctioned religious charter school open its doors in Minnesota four years ago? How does this school walk the fine line between serving a public purpose (educating children in a sensitive, culturally specific, values-oriented program) and being an Islamic religious school? Might we someday see a different system of both public and private education in the United States, one in which many schools are, in some sense, charter programs? Tax revenues would publicly fund these new charter schools, available to all children based on parental choice, and as diverse, culturally and religiously, as our society.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/06/20/42cooper.h26.html

 

 

Administrators can also find information related to the work being done on behalf of nonpublic schools at the ICNS web site  documentation

 

CONTACT US

 

If you have any questions, comments or need information related to our efforts in supporting nonpublic schools, feel free to communicate with us by sending an e-mail to ICNS