August 19, 2018

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois Senate,

100th General Assembly:

Today I veto Senate Bill 2572 from the 100th General Assembly, which changes the mandate for students’ physical education requirement from requiring 3 days a week to 150 minutes a week.

I fully support efforts to encourage our students to be active and healthy. However, this legislation represents an attempt to block reform of the many mandates on our schools that are inflexible and overly burdensome. Last year’s school funding reform legislation included adjustments to the physical education mandate, changing it from requiring pupils to attend physical education daily to a minimum of 3 days per 5-day week. This was an attempt to recognize that students have a wide variety of needs that our school districts need to balance, and prioritizing one above all others was not always in the best interest of students, as determined at the local level.

The new standard in this legislation fails to recognize that depending on schools’ scheduling, this minute-based mandate may result in the very daily requirement that was just rolled back last year. Further, this rigid requirement doesn’t account for weeks where students are not in attendance for 5 days, and will further push out other subjects and priorities on the days they are at school to satisfy the PE mandate. 

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 2572, entitled “AN ACT concerning education,” with the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR