The Illinois Education Association is working alongside Reps. Fred Crespo (D-Hoffman Estates) and Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) on legislation focused on having school districts comply with requirements in the School Threat Assessment Law, which was sponsored by Crespo and McCombie and signed into law in 2019.
According to McCombie's website, the law instructs schools to develop a threat assessment team and threat assessment protocol within 180 days. It also expands the use of the one-cent county sales tax to include school safety improvements, resource officers and mental health professionals. It also allows the district to use bonds or borrow money to pay for requirements. The law requires schools to implement a threat assessment procedure with a threat assessment team. It also directs districts to review school emergency and crisis response plans, as well as requiring the assessment team to include mental health professionals, as well as representatives from law enforcement agencies.
“This is first and foremost about public safety — the public safety of our kids,” McCombie said during a Dec. 15 press conference. “And I think we can all agree that that is the most important thing. That is not a political issue. Our children's safety has to come first. There are so many different mandates and guidelines that school boards and administration and our (Regional Offices of Education) and (the Illinois State Board of Education) have to follow and a lot of them are for health, life and safety. And this is one of those.”
Crespo sent his condolences to the families affected by the Oxford High School shooting tragedy in Michigan, where 11 people were shot and four were killed. He said this is just one incident and there were warning signs where it could have been avoided.
“Teachers should not have to worry about their safety and the safety of the students,” Crespo said. “House Bill 1561, which I offered back in 2019 with the help of Rep. McCombie, was passed in 2019 and signed into law on August 26 of 2019. The statute is very clear: schools have 180 days to put this procedure to place and put a team in place as well. And that’s what we intend to do moving forward is make sure working with IEA and Rep. McCombie to make sure that schools are held accountable and we are able to monitor that they in fact are abiding by the statute that we passed in 2019.”
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