HB5020 – Share your expertise | Impact the process
UPDATE – 21-March-2024 – 11.05 AM – The Illinois P-20 Network understands that HB5020 will no longer be called before the Higher Education Committee later today. Rather, additional work is likely to take place with various stakeholders as a next step. As the Illinois P-20 Network receives additional updates, those will be communicated to the Dual Credit Think Tank and to the field. Additionally, throughout this process, the Illinois P-20 Network will continue to engage and encourage the involvement of educators from both school districts and postsecondary institutions to put into place the best possible solutions for our collective students.
Tomorrow, Thursday, March 21, 2024, at 4 PM, HB5020 (See this previous HB5020 post for more information) is scheduled for a hearing with the Higher Education Committee. In advance of this, educators and other members of the public can file witness slips to share their expertise and to impact the legislative process. Witness slips allow members of the public to file in support of a bill, in opposition of a bill, or one can even file a neutral witness slip.
The purpose of sharing this is two-fold. First, dual credit is one critical element of our focus on Career and College Readiness, and the Dual Credit Think Tank has been actively working in this area for over four years alongside ILACEP and other key stakeholders who seek to improve dual enrollment and early college opportunities for students. The Illinois P-20 Network takes no position in favor of or in opposition to HB5020. Rather, our primary objective in sharing this is to ensure that practitioners impact policy outcomes.
One critical function of the Illinois P-20 Network is to ensure that the voices of practicing educators are able to be part of legislative and policymaking processes in order to support our goal of implementing engaging and effective assessment and instructional strategies for all learners.
To complete a witness slip, visit the Illinois General Assembly’s HB5020 web page, and follow the steps listed below. Again, a witness slip can and should be completed any time up to when the hearing ends, and it is a critical way for the expert voices of educators to influence the policymaking process.
When you first are on the General Assembly’s web page for a specific piece of legislation, you will notice that you have access near the top of the page to the full text of the legislation. Additionally, any sponsors of the legislation are listed, and just below that, highlighted in the image below, any upcoming hearings for this piece of legislation are also listed.
There are a series of steps that a user needs to click through in order to actually create a witness slip. These apply not only to HB5020 but to all bills introduced in the Illinois General Assembly. The first step is to click the “Witness Slips” link near the top of the page.
On the next page that loads, you can see who has issued witness slips in support of the bill, in opposition to the bill, and with no position. Near the top of this page, there is a link that you should click on to continue to move through the process to create your own witness slip.
On the next page, click the “Create Witness Slips” button on the right side of the web page as pictured below.
Now, a completely new website will load in your browser with an entirely different appearance. On this page, you need to find the bill on which you want to leave a witness slip. Once you have identified that bill’s row, you will click the icon on the far right of the row to create your own witness slip. (That button is circled in the image below.)
The Witness Slip form will now open. Complete this entire form. Be sure to provide your context and expertise. If you have data, include that data (while, obviously, protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information). Before you can submit, you do need to check the checkbox in the lower left corner in order to agree to the terms of the site before you can submit.
