Senger hopes signatures will sway legislators

State Rep. Darlene Senger plans to save gas on her next trip to Springfield by not packing a bus full of supporters.

Instead, she hopes to have her arms full of signatures.

The rookie Republican legislator from Naperville said she intends to present as many signatures as she can collect before Monday afternoon, to the same Illinois House committee that turned her away Wednesday evening.

Senger said Friday evening that volunteers have been calling and stopping by on a constant basis since the committee narrowly rejected her amendment to the state's Safe Schools Act. She proposed allowing school districts to immediately transfer students charged with juvenile or felony crimes to an alternative educational program.

Democrats on the House Juvenile Justice Reform Committee balked at the proposed bill Wednesday, saying it would give school districts too much control. The bill needed five votes to proceed to the House floor and lost in a 4-3 vote that went strictly along party lines.

Senger's proposal was in response to a case involving two boys from Naperville, a 12-year-old and an 11-year-old, charged with felony counts of criminal sexual abuse and criminal sexual assault against an 11-year-old schoolmate.

According to police, the incident occurred Nov. 11, 2008, in an unsupervised home.

The students all attended Naperville's Gregory Middle School in Indian Prairie Unit District 204.

One of the boys accused in the incident has since transferred to neighboring Naperville Unit District 203, but the other alleged attacker and the alleged victim remain at Gregory.

"People I don't even know have been coming in looking to do anything to help out so we're starting a petition drive on the Web site where people can give their support and feel like they're helping," Senger said Friday night. "Whatever signatures I have on the Web and those that were printed and circulated, I'll take those back to committee with me on Thursday."

Before reintroducing the bill Thursday, Senger said, she intends to narrow the list of felonies it includes to those of the most serious nature and to indicate that sending a student to an alternative school would be a last resort. And she hopes to have quite a few signatures to back her up.

"I don't have a specific goal but I want to properly represent the sentiment we're feeling here in the community," she said. "If we get 1,000 or 5,000 (signatures) that really says we're serious here and that our priority here is our children."