ILLINOIS — Illinois lawmakers have passed legislation that bans public schools from directly fining students for minor misbehavior, a practice critics say has disproportionately harmed low-income and minority students across the state.
According to an article by ProPublica, the new law is scheduled to take effect at the start of the 2027–28 academic year. It will require all public schools and districts in Illinois to stop issuing fines for disciplinary violations and to annually report to the state how often they involve police in student matters. The data must be disaggregated by race, gender, and disability and made publicly available.
The law follows a 2022 joint investigation by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune titled The Price Kids Pay, which found that while Illinois law already prohibited school officials from directly fining students, many districts circumvented that restriction by referring students to local police. Officers would then issue citations for violating municipal ordinances—essentially outsourcing school discipline to the criminal justice system.
That investigation revealed thousands of students had been ticketed for behaviors once considered minor infractions. Black students were twice as likely to be ticketed as white students, the report found.
State Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) credited the investigation for exposing what he called a “predatory practice.” Rather than relying on law enforcement, Ford said, schools should be using internal discipline policies to address student behavior.
“The goal is to make sure that if there is a violation of school code, the school should use their discipline policies,” Ford told ProPublica.
State Sen. Karina Villa (D-West Chicago), who sponsored the bill, echoed that sentiment. “This bill will once and for all prohibit monetary fines as a form of discipline for Illinois students,” she said.
The legislation also prohibits police from issuing citations to students while they are on school buses or attending school-sponsored events or activities, ProPublica reported.
Opposition came from the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, which argued that while school resource officers shouldn’t be involved in routine student discipline, they should retain the ability to issue citations for criminal conduct.
“School-based officers should not be responsible for disciplining students, but they should have the option to issue citations for criminal conduct as one of a variety of resolutions,” the association said in a statement, expressing concern about losing that tool.
The bill passed the House in a 69–44 vote and cleared the Senate last month 37–17. A spokesperson for Gov. J.B. Pritzker told ProPublica that he is supportive of the initiative and plans to review the bill.
Despite some initial confusion, ProPublica clarified that the legislation does not prevent schools from requiring students to pay for lost, stolen, or damaged property.
Aimee Galvin, government affairs director for Stand for Children, praised the measure. “This bill helps create an environment where students can learn from their mistakes without being unnecessarily funneled into the justice system,” she told ProPublica.
Supporters of the law also cited the problem of double penalization—when students received in-school punishment such as detention or suspension, and then were also ticketed by police for the same behavior.
Under current Illinois law, ordinance violations can carry fines of up to $750. Families who are unable to pay can be sent to collections, and the process of contesting the fines can be difficult and intimidating, particularly for young people.
Prior efforts at reform gained traction after the Illinois attorney general investigated a large suburban school district and found that administrators had been exploiting legal loopholes to refer students to police. While the district denied wrongdoing, the investigation concluded that its practices violated state law and disproportionately affected Black and Latino students.
