Students with special needs who turn 22 while in school will be able to finish the academic year under legislation signed into law Wednesday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.Pritzker signed House Bills 40 and 2748 at the Southside Occupational Academy High School and said those pieces of legislation help the state align “the law with our values.”

After pandemic disrupted school, new law allows students with disabilities to finish academic yearPritzker signed House Bills 40 and 2748 at the Southside Occupational Academy High School and said those pieces of legislation help the state align “the law with our values.”

Pritzker signed the two bills at the Southside Occupational Academy High School and said they will help the state align “the law with our values.”

“I strongly believe that a core principle of governance is ensuring that our laws are kind to the people that they’re meant to serve,” Pritzker said. “After all, our laws are an expression of our values, and there’s nothing kind about taking a student with disabilities out of the classroom … just because they turned another day older.

“It doesn’t happen to general education students, and it shouldn’t happen to our students with special needs either. And in Illinois that shouldn’t ever happen again as a result of what we do here today.”

The new laws will allow students whose 22nd birthday occurs during the school year to be eligible for special education services through the end of the academic year, according to the language of one of the bills the governor signed.

Up until now, students with disabilities were only eligible for services until the day before their 22nd birthday.

The other bill allows students with disabilities who turned 22 during the pandemic — when in-person learning was interrupted — to return to school in the coming school year to “make up for lost time,” Pritzker said.