Resource

Legal Reference Guide & Database


Insights into Laws Impacting Technology in Schools

To plan with confidence, K-12 leaders need to know how current state and federal laws impact their use of technology in schools – both in the classroom and beyond.

Updated annually, this free guide provides an introduction to the statutes, regulations, and rules that may apply to the use of technology in primary and secondary school districts in Illinois.

Updated: August 16, 2024

Legal Reference Database

Privacy

Student Online Personal Protection Act

Summary
The Student Online Personal Protection Act prohibits “operators” from engaging in targeted advertising, sale, rent, and use of protected information to protect privacy and security of student data. “Operators” have various duties under the act, namely: (i) implement and maintain reasonable security measures to protect covered information from unauthorized access; (ii) delete a student’s covered information if the school requests such deletion (unless a student or his or her parent consents to the maintenance of such covered information); (iii) publicly disclose material information about its collection, use, and disclosure of covered information (e.g., terms of service agreement, privacy policy, or similar document); (iv) Excepting nonpublic schools, requires any operator who seeks to receive any covered information to enter into a written agreement with the school before the covered information is transferred; (v) in case of a breach, expedient notification to the school; and (vi) excepting nonpublic schools, providing to the school a list of third parties to whom the operator is disclosing or has disclosed covered information.
Applicability
This law applies to “operators”, which is defined as: To the extent that an entity is operating in this capacity, the operator of an Internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application with actual knowledge that the site, service, or application is used primarily for K through 12 school purposes, and was designed and marketed for K through 12 school purposes.
District Website Content

Sexual Misconduct in Schools (Faith’s Law)

Summary
Each school district must develop an employee code of professional conduct policy in accordance with the requirements of Faith’s Law and post the policy on its website.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts, charter schools, and nonpublic schools.
District Website Content

Comprehensive Personal Health and Safety and Sexual Health Education

Summary
School districts must annually post on their websites which curriculum is used to provide comprehensive personal health and safety and comprehensive sexual health education and the name and contact information, including an email address, of school personnel who can respond to inquiries about instruction and materials.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts, including charter school districts, that have a website.
District Website Content

Remote and Blended Remote Learning

Summary
Each remote and blended remote learning day plan shall be posted on the district’s website where other policies, rules, and standards of conduct are posted.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts during any period where remote or blended remote learning days are required following the declaration of a disaster due to a public health emergency.
District Website Content

School Support Personnel Reporting

Summary
No later than December 1, 2022, and each December 1st thereafter, each school district must report to ISBE data related to the number of personnel holding school support personnel endorsements, and must make that information available on the district’s website.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts with a website.
District Website Content

Website Accessibility Guidelines

Summary
Effective August 1, 2022, school districts must require that any third party online curriculum that is made available to enrolled students or the public by a school district through the Internet complies with Level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 or any revised version of those guidelines. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits discrimination based on disability with regard to public services, programs and activities. This has been consistently interpreted to require that public entities make their websites accessible by individuals with disabilities
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 applies to all public entities.
District Website Content

Information Technology Accessibility Act

Summary
The Department of Human Services (“DHS”) shall develop, publish, and revise standards for electronic information technology for State entities. State agencies subject to this law, which are not school districts or community colleges, must comply with these standards. DHS has also provided these techniques for compliance which will necessarily comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, 36 CFR 1194, which apply to federal agencies.
Applicability
This law applies to the Department of Human Services and to State entities, which does not include units of local government, school districts, or community colleges. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act applies to all programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
District Website Content

Proposed School Actions; Summary; Report

Summary
The chief executive officer shall publish notice of proposed school actions such as school closures, consolidation, co-location, or boundary changes, on the district’s Internet website, as well as a written report by an independent hearing officer that summarizes the public hearings conducted to determine whether the chief executive officer complied with statutory requirements. Lastly, a summary of the public meeting shall be published on the district’s website. With respect to school closures only, eight months after notice of the proposed school action is given, the chief executive officer must publish on the district’s website a full financial report on the closure that includes an analysis of the closure’s costs and benefits to the school district.
Applicability
This law applies to school districts in cities with a population of over 500,000.
District Website Content

Capital Expenditure Report

Summary
The chief executive officer shall provide the Board with an annual capital expenditure report within 90 days after the end of the fiscal year. The report shall be published on the district’s Internet website.
Applicability
This law applies to school districts in cities with a population of over 500,000.
District Website Content

Capital Improvement Plans

Summary
The district shall develop one-year and 5-year capital improvement plans. The proposed one-year capital improvement plan shall be posted on the district’s Internet website and shall be subject to public review and comment and at least 3 public hearings. The 5-year plan shall be published on the district’s website and distributed to all principals.
Applicability
This law applies to school districts in cities with a population of over 500,000.
District Website Content

Facility Standards

Summary
The district shall publish space utilization standards on the district’s website along with a space utilization report for each school building by December 31 of each year.
Applicability
This law applies to school districts in cities with a population of over 500,000.
District Website Content

Facility Master Plan Information

Summary
The data, information, and analysis that informs the educational facility master plan must be published on the district’s website.
Applicability
This law applies to school districts in cities with a population of over 500,000.
District Website Content

Property

Summary
A list of all property owned by or leased to the Board shall be published on the district’s Internet website and updated annually. Further, a summary of all lease agreements in which the Board is a lessor or lessee must be published.
Applicability
This law applies to school districts in cities with a population of over 500,000.
District Website Content

Open Positions

Summary
The school district must post a current list of all unfilled teaching positions in the district on its Internet website. The State Board of Education’s Internet website must provide a link to this list.
Applicability
This law applies to school districts in cities with a population of over 500,000.
District Website Content

Disciplinary Practices

Summary
Certain districts identified by the ISBE that meet specified criteria must post a plan identifying strategies the school district will implement to reduce the use of exclusionary disciplinary practices, or racial disproportionality, or both.
Applicability
This law applies to the top 20% of specific school districts meeting specific ISBE requirements.
District Website Content

Student Identification; Suicide Prevention

Summary
Each school must provide contact information for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and for the Crisis Text Line on the back of each student identification card. If the school district does not issue student identification cards to all students, it must publish this information on its website.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts.
District Website Content

Suicide Prevention Policy

Summary
Each school board shall review and update its suicide awareness and prevention policy, and post such policy on the school district’s publicly accessible Internet website.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts that maintain a website.
District Website Content

Bullying Prevention Policy

Summary
All school districts must publish a bullying prevention policy on its website, as well as the information developed as a result of a policy evaluation.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts that maintain a website.
District Website Content

Anti-Bias Policy

Summary
A school board that adopts a policy to incorporate activities to address intergroup conflict, shall make that policy available to the public by posting the information on the school district’s Internet website, if any.
Applicability
This law applies to those school districts incorporating activities to address intergroup conflict that maintain an Internet website.
District Website Content

Student Online Personal Protection Act

Summary
Effective July 1, 2021, each school must post on its website, or make available at its administrative office for inspection, each written agreement entered into under the Student Online Personal Protection Act.
Applicability
This law applies to all school districts other than nonpublic schools that maintain a website.

Disclaimer: Nothing contained in this resource is intended to be construed as legal advice, nor is it intended to be a comprehensive reference of every statute, regulation, or rule that may relate to technology within school districts. Any issues pertaining to school districts should be thoroughly researched and discussed with legal counsel.