{"id":116142,"date":"2025-08-03T17:33:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116142\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T17:33:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:33:19","slug":"illinois-becomes-first-to-require-yearly-mental-health-checks-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116142\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois becomes first to require yearly mental health checks for students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illinois students will begin receiving annual mental health screenings starting in the 2027\u20132028 school year after Gov. JB Pritzker signed<\/a> a new bill into law on Thursday, July 31. Illinois is the first state to require mental health evaluations for public school students in grades three through twelve.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when our children are struggling with anxiety and depression more than ever before, it\u2019s our responsibility to ensure that our young people have all the help that they need to get the help that they deserve,\u201d Pritzker said<\/a> while signing SB1560 into law.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"QR<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDownload the SAN app today to stay up-to-date with Unbiased. Straight Facts\u2122.\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPoint phone camera here\t\t<\/p>\n

Guidelines and oversight<\/p>\n

The bill<\/a> requires public schools to offer \u201cage-appropriate\u201d mental health screenings at least once a year for children in grades three to 12. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) will oversee the process and create guidelines that all school districts in the state can use to carry out these screenings.<\/p>\n

\u201cMental health is essential to academic readiness and lifelong success. Too often, we only recognize a student\u2019s distress when it becomes a crisis. With universal screening, we shift from reaction to prevention,\u201d state Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Privacy protections and parental choice<\/p>\n

According to the bill\u2019s language, the screenings will be conducted with \u201cconfidentiality and privacy considerations\u201d and \u201ccommunication with families and communities about the use\u201d of the mental health screenings.<\/p>\n

Parents who do not want their children to participate can opt their child out of undergoing an evaluation.<\/p>\n

Opposition and concerns<\/p>\n

State Rep. Steven Reick, R-Woodstock, opposed the bill. He said children today are struggling because they\u2019re overwhelmed by negative messages and unrealistic portrayals of happiness on social media, which makes them feel left out or like they\u2019re not good enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn its face, this is a good idea, because for too long providers of these types of services have acted within what are called \u2018silos,\u2019 offering distinct services without any coordination with other providers, which might offer complementary supportive services,\u201d Reick said in a post on his website<\/a>. \u201cThis is an inefficient and wasteful way of providing needed services across a wide range of needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCassandra Buchman (Weekend Digital Producer)\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tand Bast Bramhall (Video Editor)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcontributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illinois students will begin receiving annual mental health screenings starting in the 2027\u20132028 school year after Gov. JB…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[23273,210,1818,23274,72794,517,23271,10814,23275,80,10816,67,132,68,23276],"class_list":{"0":"post-116142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-distro","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-illinois","11":"tag-imds","12":"tag-j-b-pritzker","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-news-update","15":"tag-newsbreak","16":"tag-oovvuu","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-smartnews","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-ve"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}