Special Meeting of Minooka 201 School Board

The Minooka CCSD 201 school board will be holding a special meeting on Thursday, May 2, 2013.  The purpose of the meeting is mainly to canvass the results of the recent election, seat the new board members and reorganize the board.  The full meeting agenda, as well as additional information, is available here.  The meeting will be held at 6:00 p.m. in the board room (the old library) at the Minooka Primary Center located at 305 Church Street in Minooka.  As always, members of the public are welcome to attend.

Does Your Superintendent and School Board Want to Increase Your Sales Tax?

A little known provision of Illinois law, called the School Facility Occupation Tax (see here for the text of the law), allows the school boards representing more than 50% of the student enrollment in a county to place a question on the ballot at the next election to raise the sales tax in the county up to 1%.  The proceeds from such sales tax must be used for school facilities and are allocated to the schools based on student enrollment.

In the recent election on April 9th, voters approved the sales tax increase in 6 of 17 counties and rejected the sales tax increase in 11 of 17 counties.  Across the state, the School Facility Occupation Tax has been approved in 17 of the 102 counties.

Grundy County voters may be asked to vote on the School Facility Occupation Tax in the next election.  Grundy County superintendents and school boards are already looking into the possibility of gaining additional school revenues through such a sales tax increase.  A number of school boards have been privy to presentations by Stifel, Nicolaus, an investment banking firm that specializes in bond financing, regarding the increased revenues available from a sales tax increase, the procedure for getting such a question on the ballot, and the keys to a successful vote.*  See here for the presentation to the Finance Committee of Minooka CCSD 201 (Stifel's presentation begins on page 12 of 47).

A joint school board meeting of Grundy County school boards has been scheduled to discuss the School Facility Occupation Tax.  The joint school board meeting will take place May 8th at 7 p.m. at the Coal City Early Childhood Center, 755 South Carbon Hill Road, Coal City, Illinois (for the meeting notice and the agenda of the meeting, see here).  The public, of course, is welcome to attend and comment.

For recent coverage regarding the sales tax increase proposal in Grundy County, see here and here.


*Stifel's angle, of course, is to place itself to receive increased advisory fees from such school districts when they issue more bonds in anticipation of the revenue represented by the increased sales tax.

Next Minooka 201 School Board Meeting

The next meeting of the Minooka CCSD 201 school board is Wednesday, April 24, 2013. The Committee of the Whole Meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. in the board room (the old library) at the Minooka Primary Center located at 305 Church Street in Minooka. The Committee of the Whole Meeting will be followed by the regular Board Meeting at 7 p.m. Both meetings are open to the public, and everyone is encouraged to attend. You can find the agenda for each of the meetings here. In addition, for those who are interested, click here and here for information regarding issues that will be discussed at the Committee of the Whole Meeting and the Board Meeting.

Common Core Standards: The Debate

As you may or may not be aware, Minooka CCSD 201 (along with every other public elementary or secondary school in Illinois and forty-four other states) will be changing its curriculum to align with something called the "Common Core standards."  You can read about the Common Core State Standards Initiative at their website.

 Along with the Common Core standards, there will be a new standardized test to replace the ISAT.  The new test is called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test.  You can read about the PARCC test at their website.

Well, not everyone seems to be excited about the new standards or the new test.  You can read about opposition to the Common Core standards and the PARCC test at the following websites:  Stop Common Core Illinois, Hoosiers Against Common Core, Ohioans Against Common Core, and Empowered Georgia Action (and many more).

Regardless of what you think about the Common Core standards and the PARCC test, you can be sure that the Common Core standards and the PARCC test mark the end of local control over curriculum.

Unofficial Election Results for Additional Minooka Races

Based on the returns from Grundy, Kendall and Will counties, the following are the unofficial results of the April 9th election for the following additional Minooka races (for the unofficial results of the Minooka CCSD 201 school board election see my previous post):

Minooka Village President:

Jacqueline C. McKinney 192
Patrick J. Brennan (incumbent) 813*

Minooka Village Trustee:

Yolanda L Wilhelm 467
Ray Mason (incumbent) 647*
Rudy Martin (incumbent) 609*
Terry L. Houchens (incumbent) 637*

Minooka Community High School District 111:

Mike Brozovich 2109*
Patti J. Ruettiger (incumbent) 2164*
Sherry Schmidt 1544
Charles Hiscock 1432
Douglas Kaufman (incumbent) 1226
Chris Kobe (incumbent) 1713*
Wendi Arlis 1198
Michelle Mullen 1576*

* Indicates winners in each race.

Unofficial Election Results for Minooka CCSD 201 Board Seats

Based on the returns from Grundy, Kendall and Will counties, the following are the unofficial results of the April 9th election for the Minooka CCSD 201 school board:

John S. Clucas 1091
Victoria Allen 1437*
Donald A. McKinney 1151*
Douglas P. Martin (incumbent) 1366*
James Satorius (incumbent) 1323*

* Indicates four highest vote totals.

As a personal note, I would like to thank everyone who voted for me (and everyone else who voted for that matter).