On July 31, 2025, Illinois became the first state in the country to require that every public school offer a mental health screening to every student in grades 3 through 12, once a year, free.

The law is Senate Bill 1560. It doesn't diagnose anyone and it doesn't treat anyone. It's a check — the same idea as the vision and hearing screenings schools have done for decades — meant to catch a kid who's struggling before the struggle turns into something worse. The state pays for the screening tools. The Illinois State Board of Education has to publish model policies and guidance by September 1, 2026. It takes effect in the 2027-28 school year.

And parents can already opt their child out.

Two weeks after it was signed, Mary Miller — who represents Illinois's 15th District — reintroduced a federal bill to override it.

What her bill does

The Parents Opt-in Protection Act, H.R. 4986, would require prior written consent before a student takes part in any covered school survey, analysis or evaluation that touches sensitive personal information. And the consent has to be given for that specific survey — a general authorization at the start of the year doesn't count.

In practice that means a separate signed permission slip, returned to the school, for each screening. Not a form you can decline. A form you must affirmatively return, or your child isn't screened.

Miller's own description of the Illinois law, in her announcement:

"J.B. Pritzker's plan to impose invasive 'mental health screenings' on kids, forcing parents to jump through hoops to opt out, is ridiculous and unacceptable. My bill will put parents back in charge by requiring written consent before these screenings happen."

Note the scare quotes around mental health screenings, and the word invasive for a questionnaire a school nurse gives a fifth grader.

Note also the logic. Her objection is that opting out makes parents "jump through hoops." Her fix is to require every parent in the state to jump through a hoop for every screening — and if the form doesn't come back, the kid doesn't get checked. The hoop doesn't go away. It gets moved in front of the kids who need the screening most, whose parents are the least likely to have the time, the English, or the stable address to return a form on schedule.

The House Committee on Education and Workforce — which Miller sits on — voted in July 2026 to advance the bill to the full House. It hasn't had a floor vote.

The law she's fighting isn't what she says it is

Here's what SB1560 actually does, from the state's own announcement of it.

Governor JB Pritzker: "Annual mental health screenings will be available for all Illinois students in grades three through twelve by the 2027 school year. This is a national first worth celebrating."

State Superintendent Sanders: "With universal screening, we shift from reaction to prevention. The earlier we identify a need, the better support we can provide."

State Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, who sponsored it: "No child should have to struggle in silence, especially in our public school system."

Screenings are available to every student, not forced on any. Parents can already say no. The state supplies the tools so districts don't have to pay for them. And the law pairs the screening with the BEACON portal, so a family that gets a flag has somewhere to go next.

Opponents of Miller's bill also point out that federal law already contains protections here: the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment requires schools to notify parents and give them an opt-out before surveying students about sensitive topics. Her bill isn't filling a gap. It's converting an existing opt-out into an opt-in, which is a very different thing when you're talking about reaching every child.

Look at who's backing it

Miller's press release lists the groups supporting the bill: the American Principles Project, Parents Defending Education, the Parental Rights Foundation, the Family Research Council, Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Independent Women's Forum — and Moms for America.

Moms for America is the organization that hosted the rally outside the Capitol on January 5, 2021, where Miller stood at a podium and declared that "Hitler was right on one thing. He said, 'Whoever has the youth has the future.'" The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum condemned the remark. Republicans and Democrats in Illinois both called on her to answer for it. She apologized three days later.

Five years on, that same organization is on the endorsement list for her bill about who gets to decide what happens to Illinois children.

What's actually at stake

Nobody has to guess what a mental health screening is for. It's for the kid who has stopped eating lunch, or who has started writing things in a notebook that a parent will only find out about much later, or who is being hurt at home and has no adult to tell.

Some of those kids have parents who will read the form and sign it. Some of them have parents who are the reason the form should never have to come home at all.

Illinois built a system that reaches all of them and lets any parent pull their child out. Miller wants a federal law that reaches only the ones whose parents send back a piece of paper.

She sits on the committee that just advanced it. And her constituents have been keeping count of how often they get to ask her about things like this in person: a March 2025 protest outside her Mahomet office carried signs reading "Where's Mary? 1,532 days in office, ZERO town halls." In February 2026, when constituents organized a meet-up in a Quincy park and invited her, she didn't respond.

We deserve better.

Source

Parents' rights bill sent to House amid Illinois mental health debate — WTVO, July 2026. Photo: CBS Chicago.