FFA, 4-H students receive expanded excused absences through new law

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill Monday providing students who participate in work-based learning experiences with excused absence opportunities.

Backed by Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, the law allows students in programs such as 4-H or Future Farmers of America to count days spent outside of the classroom in work-related events towards school attendance. House Bill 3814 passed both chambers unanimously during the spring session and will go into effect on Jan. 1.

"This new law is a major win not just for our students but for the future of our agricultural industry," the governor said during a signing ceremony held at the Illinois Department of Agriculture Administrative Building in Springfield.

The bill is the latest investment into 4-H and FFA from the governor's administration. Over the course of a year, FFA membership has nearly doubled to 41,000 members statewide since Pritzker announced that every student in the state taking an agriculture class would have their dues paid - costing the state $550,000 to do so.

Turner said the bill will strengthen agriculture's status in Illinois. The industry brings in more than $51 billion to the state each year according to the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

"Illinois is home to some of the most fertile farmland in the world and without our farmers we wouldn't have food on the table or any of the thousands of byproducts derived from that farm," Turner said, who serves as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. "And we need our youth to continue to invest in Illinois agriculture opportunities."

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Prritzker's signature on the bill follows a mass signing of legislation by the governor on Friday and Saturday, including a veto that has raised some pushback from lawmakers.

Senate Bill 76 would have ended the state's 1980s-era moratorium on constructing new nuclear plants, which the governor said he vetoed because of late changes to the legislation. Bill sponsor Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, however, contended Pritzker was playing a political gambit and said she will work to override the veto during the veto session in late October and early November.

"The original intention of the legislation was to focus on small modular reactors and then at the end, it got broadened to just any advanced reactor," Pritzker said.

Focusing the bill solely on those reactors could gain the governor's approval, he said, but more study is needed.

Contact Patrick Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Gov. Pritzker signs bill granting more excused absences for work-related events