August 24,
2009
To the
Honorable Members of the Illinois Senate,
96th
General Assembly:
Today, I return Senate Bill 1391 with specific
recommendations for change. I thank the sponsors for their hard work on this
bill. I believe that we must work together to provide
our students with appropriate support and to make sure that there are well
defined guidelines for the people who counsel schoolchildren.
This
bill fails to provide those guidelines and contains too many ambiguities for it
to be a meaningful solution. For example, the bill does not contain safeguards
to ensure that marital and family therapists have the appropriate training to
work with children in an educational setting. I believe a more comprehensive
approach to these issues would be for members of the General Assembly to work
closely with the State Board of Education. Specifically, legislators should
develop certification requirements so that the State Board of Education
licenses only the highest-quality professionals to work with our children.
That is why I propose a task force where we can work together to reach positive
results.
Therefore,
pursuant to Article IV, Section 9(e) of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I
hereby return Senate Bill 1391, entitled “AN ACT concerning education.”, with
the following specific recommendations for change:
on line 9, by
replacing “initiate rulemaking to provide” with “convene a task force
of no less than 5 members appointed by the State Superintendent to develop”;
and
on line 11, by
replacing “These rules shall include” with “The task force shall
review”; and
on line 12, by
replacing “by” with “for”; and
on line 15, by
replacing “the State Board of Education deems appropriate for” with “they
relate to”.
With these changes, Senate Bill
1391 will have my approval. I respectfully request your concurrence.
Sincerely,
PAT QUINN
Governor