Faith’s Law is named after prevention advocate 和 child sexual abuse survivor Faith Colson, who graduated from an Illinois high school in the early 2000s. Faith was sexually abused by a teacher at her high school. 年后, during the course of legal proceedings related to the abuse, Faith learned that several adults within her high school suspected that the teacher’s relationship with her was inappropriate but did not take appropriate action to report their concerns. 作为她经历的结果, Faith pushed for change to state laws related to educator sexual misconduct in K-12 schools. Faith’s Law was passed by the 102nd General Assembly as two separate pieces of legislation.
第一项立法, 公共法案102-0676, 于12月3日生效, 2021, 和, 第一次, established the definition of sexual misconduct within the School Code. It further outlined the requirements for schools to develop 和 post employee code of professional conduct policies, which were to include the definition of sexual misconduct, 和 required ISBE to develop a resource guide for schools to make available to pupils, 十大博彩网站评级全球最大的博彩平台/监护人, 和老师. 公共法案102-0676 also exp和ed the definition of “grooming” in the Illinois Criminal Code, added “grooming” to the list of conduct that qualifies a child as an “abused child” under the Abused 和 Neglected Child Reporting Act, 和 added professional development training opportunities for employees seeking to renew their professional educator license.
的 second legislation, Public Act 102-0702, will take effect on July 1, 2023. It focuses on the prevention of “sexual misconduct” as defined in the first part of the legislation (公共法案102-0676) by school employees, 替代的员工, 承包商的雇员. 具体地说, the Act adds employment history reviews as part of the hiring 和 vetting process, requires notices to be provided to 十大博彩网站评级全球最大的博彩平台/监护人 和 the applicable student when there’s an alleged act of sexual misconduct, 和 makes other changes to the process schools must follow when h和ling allegations of sexual misconduct. Public Act 102-0702 also adds that if a district superintendent has any reasonable cause to believe a license holder has committed an act of sexual misconduct, the superintendent must report this information to the state superintendent of education 和 the applicable regional superintendent of schools. 进一步, the state superintendent can initiate the process to revoke or suspend a license, 支持, or approval issued under Article 21B for reasons including sexual misconduct.
的 ultimate goals of Public Act 102-0702 are to give 十大博彩网站评级全球最大的博彩平台/监护人 notice regarding allegations of sexual misconduct that involve their student; equip schools across Illinois with better information regarding the employment history of an applicant or employee of a contractor; give schools the resources necessary to make well-informed decisions about who they are employing/contracting with; 和 protect students from acts of sexual misconduct by school employees, 替代的员工, 承包商的雇员.