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Committee reviews nondiscrimination, FAFSA, graduation and discipline policy changes tied to recent state law updates
Summary
On second read, the committee reviewed nondiscrimination and Section 504/ADA policy language updated for Title IX consistency, a FAFSA timeline change reflecting Public Act 24-45, graduation-credit adjustments for financial literacy, and student-discipline revisions required by Public Acts 24-45 and 24-93.
The Instructional Committee completed second reads of multiple policy updates on Nov. 4, reviewing technical and statutory changes recommended for the district policy manual.
Speaker 4 summarized nondiscrimination changes across community, personnel and student versions, saying the law firm Shipman & Goodwin revised language to align with recent Title IX rules and to ensure "comparable proceedings" across policies; the community and personnel versions clarify prohibited conduct to include epithets related to sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
The committee also reviewed updates to Section 504 and Americans with Disabilities Act–related policies to align appeal procedures with Title IX modifications and to make technical edits across student and personnel versions.
On FAFSA, Speaker 4 said 2023 legislation had required FAFSA-related tasks beginning with the graduating class of 2025, but that Public Act 24-45 delays that requirement until the graduating class of 2027; the district policy and associated regulation were updated to reflect that change.
Graduation requirements were revised to reflect the FAFSA change and to clarify how the new financial-literacy credit may be counted as a humanities elective, a STEM elective, or a general elective. The district will continue to require 26 credits to graduate and has set a 0.5 fine-arts semester requirement for the incoming freshman cohort.
Finally, student-discipline policy changes were reviewed as required by Public Act 24-45 (reducing the maximum consecutive in-school suspension days from 10 to 5 and altering out-of-school suspension rules for pre-K–grade 2 with required interventions) and Public Act 24-93 (requiring five business days' notice before expulsion hearings and additional parental-notification requirements for behavior-intervention meetings). The committee treated these as second reads and no additional consensus votes were required unless members sought further edits.
