Students feed, lobby lawmakers

SPRINGFIELD — A normal day in the rotunda at the state Capitol building sees hundreds of demonstrators, lobbyists, lawmakers and tourists scurrying throughout the building to meetings and appointments.

But on one day this spring, Aisleem Walker and Marilyn Lopez — high school students from Aurora — were serving breakfast. They both attend Fox Tech, a school for children with disabilities.

Their message that day was the same as many visitors to the Capitol, especially people from schools.

“We’re in a huge budget crunch,” said Beth Conran of the Menta Group, a nonprofit organization to help disabled children in education. “We’re begging them not to cut funding for special needs kids.”

Walker said her role in delivering that message was simply to offer lawmakers a bit to eat and tell them her story. She’s a junior at Fox Tech who wants to go to college and study horticulture or child care.

“It’s good to bond with people,” she said.

Lopez wants to go to Waubonsee Community College to be a nurse. She was handing out yogurt to hungry Capitol-dwellers.

“Everyone loves that,” Lopez said. “Our school is very important.”

Lawmakers will likely fight over the state budget until the end of May, or even longer.

Despite the income tax increase approved earlier this year, part of that fight could include deep, painful cuts to programs that many Illinoisans hold dear.

Carrie Janes, a teacher at East Aurora High School that works with hard-of-hearing students, said she wanted to work on talking to lawmakers about her role at school, and telling them about the Illinois State Advisory Council’s goal to advise lawmakers about issues facing disabled students.

“They may not have known what ISAC’s role is,” Janes said.