While Springtime, for most people, entails fine weather, fresh starts and happy thoughts, school districts in Illinois aren’t among those who enjoy ANY of those things at this time of year when it comes to budgets.
Instead, we’ve repeatedly seen deeper and deeper financial crises into which schools are sinking, especially downstate, where tax bases (which is how funding for schools is apportioned in the state) are diminishing steadily, and so, in turn, are the programs schools offer.
Classroom sizes are increased; kids are bad by nature and are only getting worse as society demoralizes everything; educators are having to handle maxed-out classrooms of whacked-out kids…and yet, layoffs (called “reduction in force” in a school setting) continue.
Such is the case in Carrier Mills.
While we don’t routinely cover school board issues, the one in Carrier Mills struck us this past month because it’s endemic in Illinois: School districts, in an effort to deal with diminished funding, have to take these steps. Here now is coverage of the meeting in the Mills that addressed this tumultuous issue, Teachers cut in recent move as state funding dips:
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CARRIER MILLS-STONEFORT—Reduction in Force (RIF) was the topic of a heavy Carrier Mills-Stonefort School Board on Monday, March 31, when the board was forced to let go several teachers as a result of being under funded.
The meeting began with a public hearing on the matter, during which a presentation was given of the financial status of the school. The board had prepared a paper presentation of the financial statement that the superintendent had for those in attendance. This financial statement showed decrease of 16.1 percent funding in the Education Fund over the last four fiscal years, and 35.9 percent in the Transportation Fund. Part of this was from state funding cuts, and the rest was from grant cuts and enrollment decline.
“So what do we do?” Superintendent Richard Morgan said, explaining that the board had cut a bus route last year, and may do the same this year. Additionally, it was possible that portions of the elementary school might be combined, or additional math courses that had been added to boost math scores may be dropped. Morgan stated that these cuts were not something the board wanted to do, but that at some point tough choices had to be made and something has to give.
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To read the rest of this article, simply click on the headline above the excerpt, or this link to get started on your e-Edition online subscription; just follow the prompts! If you prefer to have your paper in hard copy, you can still do that…visit the ROC One-Stop in Carrier Mills, as well as any ROC One-Stop in the area (Harrisburg, Galatia, Eldorado, West Frankfort, Marion, Rosiclare, Johnston City) among our vendors to get your copy!
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