105 ILCS 5/13A-1
2021 Illinois Compiled Statutes|Chapter 105 - SCHOOLS|105 ILCS 5/ - School Code.|Article 13A - Alternative Public Schools

Sec. 13A-1.     Legislative Declaration.     The General Assembly finds and  declares as follows:(a) The children of this State constitute its most important resource, and  in order to enable those children to reach their full potential, the State must  provide them the quality public education that the Constitution of the State of  Illinois mandates.(b) The State cannot provide its children with the education they deserve  and require unless the environment of the public schools is conducive to  learning.(c) That environment cannot be achieved unless an atmosphere of safety  prevails, assuring that the person of each student, teacher, and staff member  is respected, and that none of those people are subjected to violence, threats,  harassment, intimidation, or otherwise confrontational or inappropriate  behaviors that disrupt the educational atmosphere.(d) In most schools, although the disruptive students who are  the primary cause of inappropriate educational environments comprise a small  percentage of the total student body, they nevertheless consume a substantial  amount of the time and resources of teachers and school administrators who are  required to address and contain that disruptive behavior.(e) Disruptive students typically derive little benefit from  traditional school programs and may benefit substantially by being transferred  from their current school into an alternative public school program, where  their  particular needs may be more appropriately and individually addressed and where  they may benefit from the opportunity for a fresh start in a new educational  environment.  At those alternative school programs, innovative  academic and  school-to-work programs, including but not limited to the techniques of work  based learning and technology delivered learning, can be utilized to best help  the students enrolled in  those schools to become productive citizens.(f) Students need an appropriate, constructive classroom atmosphere in order  to benefit from the teacher's presentations.  Students cannot afford the  classroom disruptions and often become frustrated and angry at the inability of  their teachers and schools to control disruptive students.  As a  result, they drop out of school too often.  Furthermore, even if these students  stay in school and graduate, they have been deprived by their disruptive  classmates of the attention to their educational needs that their  teachers would otherwise have provided, thereby diminishing their receiving the  education and skills necessary to secure good jobs and become productive  members of an increasingly competitive economic environment.(g) Parents of school children statewide have expressed their rising anger  and concern at the failure of their local public schools to provide a safe and  appropriate educational environment for their children and to deal  appropriately with disruptive students, and the General Assembly  deems their concerns to be understandable and justified.(h) Every school district in the State shall do all it can to ensure a safe  and appropriate educational environment for all of its students, and the first,  but not the only, step school districts must take to achieve that goal is to  administratively transfer disruptive students from the schools they  currently attend to the alternative school programs created by  this  Article.  Those  administrative transfers will also provide optional educational programs to  best fit the needs of the transferred students.(i) Administrative transfers may prove more productive for dealing with  disruptive students than out-of-school suspensions or expulsions, which have  been  the subject of much criticism.(j) Because of the urgency of the problems described in this Section, as  well as their statewide impact, the State of Illinois  bears  the responsibility to establish and fully fund alternative schools as soon as  possible, thereby providing school districts with an option for dealing with  disruptive students that they do not now possess.(k) While school districts shall comply with all applicable federal laws and  regulations, they should do so consistent with the goals and policies stated in  this Article.  Further, this Article is intended to be consistent with all  applicable federal laws and regulations.(l) An alternative school program established under this Article is  subject to the  other provisions of this Code that apply generally in the public schools of  this State and to the  rules and regulations promulgated thereunder, except as  otherwise provided in this Article.(m) The provisions of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act apply to  those alternative school programs that are created on or after  the  effective date of  this amendatory Act of 1995.    (Source: P.A. 89-383, eff. 8-18-95; 89-629, eff. 8-9-96.)