Rod Blagojevich

GOVERNOR

August 11, 2003

To the Honorable Members of the

Illinois Senate

93^rd General Assembly

Pursuant to Article IV, Section 9(e) of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 902, entitled “AN ACT relating to schools”, with the following specific recommendations for change:

on page 1, by replacing lines 18 through 26 with the following:

“shall provide that those schools that are on the State Board of Education Early Academic Warning List or the academic watch list under Section 2-3.25d that maintain grades kindergarten through 3 shall be given priority.”; and

            by replacing lines 30 and 31 on page 1 and lines 1 through 4 on page 2 with the following:

“class size of no more than 20 pupils.”.

These changes are necessary to give flexibility to the State Board of Education to award grants to the most disadvantaged schools, based on a variety of factors.  With these changes, Senate Bill 902 will have my approval.  I respectfully request your concurrence.

Sincerely,

Rod R. Blagojevich

Governor