Spring votes unlikely for southern Vermilion districts

Photo by: Rick Danzl/The News-Gazette

Catlin school board President Jeff Fauver, left, and Catlin Superintendent Gary Lewis, standing outside Catlin High School.

Most school officials in southern Vermilion County say they are keeping all their options open regarding a possible reorganization of their districts, but no changes are likely to appear on the spring 2014 ballots.

Cheryl Reifsteck, the regional superintendent of Vermilion County schools, said the deadlines to put a school consolidation or academic cooperative referendum on the spring ballot are fast approaching, and she is not aware of any reorganization petitions on their way to her office.

The topic of combining some or all or the southern Vermilion County school districts has been discussed since at least the 1960s.

But recently, shrinking enrollments and reduced state aid a critical revenue source have led school officials in the Catlin, Oakwood, Jamaica, Westville and Georgetown-Ridge Farm districts to talk about the possibility of reorganizing their districts before financial hardships get so extreme that they are unable to pay their bills and state officials have to step in and take control.

No one wants a situation where the Illinois State Board of Education has to decide if the schools in the district will stay open, or if the students will be sent to another district, Reifsteck said. Local school boards and local voters should make those decisions.

The five superintendents and representatives from the five school boards have met to discuss reorganizations once, in May; there are no current plans for another five-district meeting. But the subject has been raised at recent school board meetings, and Reifsteck said that she is being contacted by school officials with questions about reorganization.

There are three basic options for school reorganization consolidation, cooperative and deactivation:

Consolidation: Two or more districts merge together into a district with central management and a single school board.

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Spring votes unlikely for southern Vermilion districts