ISBE Has Issued 408 Pages of AI Guidance: What School Districts Need to Know and more...

ISBE Has Issued 408 Pages of AI Guidance: What School Districts Need to Know

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has published statewide guidance on artificial intelligence use in schools. This guidance provides schools with a toolbox of instructional use rubrics, model policies, and implementation checklists. However, what it does not provide them with is a single, uniform Illinois model policy ready to adopt.

This guidance was developed in response to Public Act 104-0399, which in 2025 charged the ISBE with “develop[ing] statewide guidance for school districts and educators on the use of artificial intelligence in elementary and secondary education.”

School districts are directed to model templates and policies that they can use as “starting points.” Those resources are organized into three distinct policies: a district-wide policy, an Acceptable Use Policy, and an Informed Use Policy. ISBE provides model template resources from other states and districts to support drafting, review, legal/compliance checks, and board adoption processes.

The guidance also flags that “trust but verify” should govern all AI use where it “should not independently determine special education eligibility, student discipline outcomes, teacher evaluations, hiring decisions, or other high-stake determinations without documented human review and district accountability processes.”

ISBE indicates it will release additional tailored guidance and no-cost professional learning during the 2026-27 school year. In the meantime, school districts with questions about implementing AI policies or evaluating their current procedures should contract their legal counsel for assistance.

Post Authored by Ronette Leal McCarthy & Betsy Lecy, Ancel Glink

Employees First Amendment Retaliation Claims Rejected by Court

In Fox v. DuPage Township, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected former employees' First Amendment claim that they were terminated because they campaigned for an opposing candidate for election to government office.

After an election that changed the make-up of township government, the township board voted to reorganize a senior center's leadership, resulting in the termination of two employees from their employment at the center. They sued, claiming that they were terminated in retaliation for their campaigning for the township supervisor's opponent in the election. The district court rejected their arguments and ruled in favor of the township, finding that the two former employees had failed to show that their protected First Amendment activity was a motivating factor in their termination. They appealed.

On appeal, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court's decision. To make a retaliation case against the government in a First Amendment claim, the former employees were required to show that their speech was constitutionally protected, they suffered a deprivation likely to deter their speech, and their speech was "at least a motivating factor" in the government's action. Here, the Court held that the two former employees did not meet the third requirement because they provided no direct evidence that their participation in the opponent's campaign was a motivating factor in their terminations. Instead, they relied on an inference of "suspicious timing" which was not sufficient in this case because they could not show that the government knew of their protected conduct. The township also showed alternative reasons for their termination. As a result, the former employees failed to show they were retaliated against based on their First Amendment activities.

11th Circuit Finds City Panhandling Ordinance Unconstitutional

In Scott v. City of Daytona Beach, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down several provisions of a city ordinance that restricted panhandling.

Daytona Beach, Florida, enacted Ordinance No. 19-27 in 2019. The ordinance banned “aggressive panhandling” throughout the city, banned traditional panhandling in numerous locations, and restricted certain methods of panhandling.

Four men who regularly panhandled in Daytona Beach challenged the ordinance both facially and as applied to them, arguing it violated their First Amendment free-speech rights. After conducting a lengthy standing analysis for each plaintiff and each challenged provision, the court addressed the merits of the constitutional claims.

First, relying on existing precedent, the Court reaffirmed that panhandling is protected speech under the First Amendment. The Court next determined that the challenged provisions were “content-based” rather than “content-neutral” regulations, meaning that the ordinance was subject to strict scrutiny, which is the highest standard of constitutional review, requiring a compelling government interest pursued through the least speech-restrictive means.

To satisfy strict scrutiny, the city argued that the ordinance was necessary to advance the compelling government interests of protecting public health and promoting traffic safety. While the Court acknowledged that both can be compelling government interests, it concluded that the ordinance was not narrowly tailored to achieve those objectives. The Court also noted that the city could pursue both interests through less speech-restrictive means, including the enforcement of existing laws such as disorderly conduct or trespassing.

As a result, the Court struck down those portions of the ordinance that were found unconstitutional. The Court also upheld an award of $80,000 in damages to the plaintiffs.

Note that this decision covers the 11th Circuit and not the 7th Circuit in which Illinois is located. However, the content-based versus content-neutral analysis comes from U.S. Supreme Court precedent that applies to all states.

Post Authored by Luigi Laudando, Ancel Glink

Court Upholds Disqualification of Police Officer Candidate for Past Conduct

A candidate applied for a probationary police officer position with a city police department. As part of the application process, the city conducted a background investigation that found two police reports that included allegations of assault and stalking by the candidate against two women. After investigating the incidents and interviewing the candidate, the city removed the candidate from the eligibility list for dishonesty during the interview and past criminal conduct. The candidate challenged his disqualification with the city's police board which upheld the decision. He then filed an appeal with the circuit court which also upheld the city's disqualification.

On appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court, the candidate argued that the disqualification was "unjust" because he had never been arrested. He also claimed the allegations made by the two women were false. Finally, he claimed the city violated his due process rights. The city defended its disqualification decision, arguing that they had sufficient evidence to dispute his claims, including records of two prior arrests.

First, the Appellate Court reviewed the bases relied upon by the city for its disqualification decision (impersonation of a police officer, conduct indicating violent tendencies, and false statements during the application process) and determined that the city had ample evidence to support its decision to disqualify the candidate from the eligibility list for the position of probationary police officer.

Second, the Appellate Court rejected the candidate's claim that his due process rights were violated, finding that he received written notice of his disqualification, he took full advantage of the opportunity to challenge his disqualification through a written appeal to the police board, and that there is no legal requirement that disqualified applicants are entitled to an in-person hearing to confront witnesses. In sum, the Appellate Court upheld the city's decision to disqualify him from the police officer position. Navarro-Angulo v. Police Board of the City of Chicago, et al.

Court Rules Against Journalists in Lawsuit Against Police Officers for Injuries Sustained at a Protest

In Schukar, et al. v. Kenosha County, et al., the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s decision in favor of police officers in a First and Fourth Amendment case brought by photojournalists relating to a protest incident.

On August 25, 2020, two photojournalists were documenting a protest at the Kenosha County Courthouse. The protest was sparked by the shooting of a 29-year-old Black male by a City of Kenosha police officer. During the protest, both protestors and police officers launched objects at one another, including the officers’ launching of foam batons that hit and injured the journalists. Shortly after the incident, the journalists filed a lawsuit against two police officers who were at the protest. They claimed the officers intentionally struck them in retaliation for engaging in the First Amendment protected activity of protesting and used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court ruled against the journalists, who appealed the district court’s ruling.

The Seventh Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling in favor of the police officers. As to the journalists' First Amendment claim, the Seventh Circuit found there was no evidence that either officer intentionally targeted the journalists for engaging in their First Amendment right to protest. The Court found that the officers’ use-of-force reports (which failed to accurately state the total number of rounds deployed during the protest) were not enough to show that the officers intentionally targeted the photojournalists.

As to the Fourth Amendment claim, the Seventh Circuit found that the officers had qualified immunity. The Seventh Circuit determined that it was not "clearly established" by case law whether an officer’s intentional deployment of less-than-lethal munitions that hit unintended targets during a protest constitutes a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, so the journalists could not defeat the officers' claims of qualified immunity.

Authored by Rachel Stempler, Ancel Glink

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