For 17-year-old Abhinav Anne, offering Illinois students a chance to get a free mental health screening feels like a milestone in his work in mental health advocacy.
Gov. JB Pritzker cemented that milestone with a flick of his wrist Thursday afternoon at Chute Middle School in Evanston by signing a new Illinois law, the first of its kind in the nation, he said, to grant students mental health screenings at least once a year.
The bill, SB 1560, requires all Illinois public schools to offer third through 12th grade students a free, optional mental health screening. The bill passed the Illinois House of Representatives on May 21, and the Senate a month earlier in April.
The state is anticipated to pick up the cost of the health screenings and the Illinois State Board of Education is expected to provide local school districts guidance and policy on how to use the screening tools by Sept. 1, 2026, according to the governor’s office. The screenings are slated to begin in the 2027-2028 school year.
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“Just as we have been screening for vision or hearing challenges that students have had for many years, we will now provide assessments for mental health,” Pritzker said, prior to signing the bill into law. “This is a national first that’s worth celebrating about the state of Illinois.”
“We know how transformational these screenings can be for kids at this age — they provide early identification and intervention so that those who are struggling get the help that they need as soon as possible,” he said.
The governor chose to sign the bill at an Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school because of the district’s leading mental health initiatives that outpace other school districts in the state, Pritzker said.
“Chute’s been an example of a place that actually pays attention to the mental health of its students and does its best to refer people wherever they can,” he said.
“And I used to live here,” Pritzker said, of Evanston. “I know how important this community is and its leadership for some in the rest of the state that may not already have gotten there,” he said.
Hannah Dillow, District 65’s communications manager, said the district launched its counseling program four years ago to provide middle school students additional mental health, social and academic support.
District 65 also launched its Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) screener five years ago, allowing schools in the district to proactively identify student needs and offer ongoing support, she said.
The district also uses a structured intervention system for academic and social-emotional needs, conducts student surveys to gauge students’ sense of belonging, and offers a holistic approach to student well-being, Dillow said.
Anne, a rising senior at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, part of Indian Prairie School District 204, said the bill signing signaled to him a promise of compassion from the state and public schools to prioritize mental health, something he has learned a lot about after having a crisis of his own.
“Earlier this year, I found myself sinking under the weight of expectations. I couldn’t seem to escape. I wrote around me, spoke about potential, about a bright future, but to me, those hopes felt like chains, like pressure on something already starting to happen,” he said.
“This is our journey forward, to believe in its brightness,” Anne said. “To every young person who feels unseen or unheard, this moment is for you.”
Anne said he helped advocate for the bill when he met Dana Weiner, Illinois’ Chief Officer for Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation.
“Over the last three years in partnership with ISBE (the Illinois State Board of Education) we have learned a lot about what (school) districts need in order to better identify and respond to youth who confront mental health challenges,” Weiner said Thursday.
State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders also commented, saying, “Too often, we only recognize a student’s distress when it becomes a crisis. With universal screening, we shift from reaction to prevention.”
Along with the mental health screenings, the bill aims to raise awareness of the state’s online Behavioral Health Care and Ongoing Navigation, or BEACON, portal. According to the governor’s office, the portal provides Illinois families with information about available behavioral health services for children and adolescents, including: the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice. The portal officially launched in early 2025.