The Illinois legislative session ends at the end of the month. One bill working its way through the Senate was created by a Naperville high school student.
Ashlynn Goldstein is a senior at Naperville Central High School. She’s going to school for nursing next year and has done a lot of CPR training from Girl Scouts to a CNA course last summer. And last year, she had a realization.
“I've never seen a CPR mannequin that was female in my life, and I've been certified at least five times," she said.
It led her to research about bystander CPR. Women who suffer a cardiac arrest in public are 27% less likely to receive CPR.
“And, basically, the reason I found is people are scared," said Goldstein.
They’re afraid of inappropriately touching or hurting women.
“People get scared and they hesitate," she said. "When someone goes into cardiac arrest, I mean, people say 'every second matters' for a lot of things, but it really is every second matters."
All Illinois high schools are required to teach CPR. So, Goldstein’s idea was, what if students learned on both male and female CPR manikins?
“My hope is by having more female manikins in high schools, you're going to get a large group of people who are learning it and learning how to be comfortable with different anatomy in the case that someone goes into cardiac arrest in the real world," she said.
But, how do you go from a good idea to writing a piece of state legislation especially as a student?
“I had zero experience with government, in general, before this," she said. "I hadn't even voted yet until this year. I wasn't even 18, so I had no experience.”
Luckily, she was in a capstone class at Naperville Central taught by 2026 Illinois Teacher of the Year Seth Brady. He’s helped several students create legislation, work with local lawmakers, and get them passed into law from topics like severe allergies to media literacy.
Goldstein spent the fall researching and prepping to pitch her plan. At the end of the semester, she and a few classmates met with Democratic state representatives Maura Hirschauer and Janet Yang Rohr.
“I was really nervous going into that meeting, but they were so sweet," she said.
They asked her to clarify a few points and tweak some wording. Eventually, Representative Hirschauer agreed to sponsor her bill.
The bill was filed in February and assigned to the Education Policy committee. They quickly got feedback from the Illinois Principals Association that it needed amendments.
“We pushed back the start date to a year later to give school some more time, and then we removed the ratio of male to female manikins, and we're just saying you have to have at least one," said Goldstein.
It made the plan cheaper for school districts who’d have to buy additional manikins, or chest covers they can put on the male manikins they already have.
Goldstein emailed back and forth with Rep. Hirschauer asking if there’s anything she can do to help.
One of the big things was getting people to fill out witness slips in support of the bill. She sent out mass emails giving step-by-step instructions on how to submit them to the state’s website.
“It was a lot of family, a lot of friends, some teachers, just a lot of support from the community," said Goldstein. "I've been very grateful for all of that, especially for the help that Mr. Brady has given.”
They got 190 witness slips in support and only one in opposition. It wasn’t just friends and family either. A few healthcare nonprofits, including Illinois Heart Rescue, signed on.
A member of Illinois Heart Rescue also testified at a committee hearing. And Goldstein, herself, testified over Zoom and gave written testimony.
In early May, her bill passed in the House. It’s currently waiting for a vote in the senate.
“I do hope that, because it went somewhere, it also helped create more publicity, she said. "At the end of the day, if the bill doesn't pass, I'm just glad that so many people are talking about it and recognizing the issue.”
Goldstein says people are taking notice.
“I've heard of EMTs up in Chicago who heard about the bill and immediately went out and bought female manikins. So, it is changing things, and I think that's so cool to actually be able to see change in an issue that I focus on," said the Naperville Central senior.
She says the experience has been challenging but empowering. Again, Goldstein was 17 when she came up with the idea. She had to look at a lot of flow charts of the legislation and was lucky to have a lot of teachers ready to answer her questions.
“A lot of times when you're a teenager or a young adult, you're kind of told that you can't really do things. You can't make change. You're too young, you're immature, you don't have experience," she said. "This really showed me you can make change if you set your mind to something; if you truly take advantage of all the resources and opportunities given to you.”
If Goldstein’s CPR bill passes, it’ll go into effect for Illinois schools in 2029.
