As reported in the October Extra Mile, the Youth Sports Concussion Safety Act (Public Act 99-0245) was recently enacted. The law specifies requirements for concussion safety for public school districts, charter schools, and private schools with students participating in interscholastic athletic activities.
The law went into effect when it was signed by the Governor on August 3, 2015. This did not give schools much time to put in place all of the requirements under the new law. As a result, a “trailer bill” was introduced to push back the effective date. On November 20, 2015, the Governor approved the trailer bill (Public Act 99-0486), extending the effective date of the concussion law to the 2016-2017 school year. Now schools will have almost a year to prepare for implementing all of the law’s requirements.
ISBE is expected to develop guidance documents on the new concussion requirements, and the IHSA will be updating its concussion training courses and forms to be consistent with the new law. For school districts that subscribe to the IASB PRESS policy service, a revised concussion policy was included in IASB’s October 2015 issue.
Please refer to the October Extra Mile article for an overview of the law’s requirements. Please contact Jennifer Mueller with your concussion statute inquiries.
