Fall Sports

Congratulations to the Lakeview Girls Cross Country team that placed 1st in the SEDAA Conference meet last Saturday. The Lady Spartans had a great season this year. They are coached by Mr. Paul Rodda and Mr. Mike Urbas. The Lakeview 8th grade volleyball team also placed first last Saturday in the SEDAA Conference tournament, held at Lakeview Junior High, in the small school division. The volleyball team was coached by Mrs. Rene Andreatta and Mr. Joe Schmitt! Basketball season will be upon us in two weeks!

Overview of School Funding

On Saturday, September 30th, Gary Ey and Bill Heinrichs retired financial experts from the Illinois State Board of Education presented a program entitled “General State Aid/A Retrospective” at Glenbard East High School in Lombard. This program gave a detailed overview of state funding programs from the 1970’s to the present. This informative program was sponsored by local education groups, LEND, SCOPE and ED-RED, as well as Wight and Company Architects. To learn more about the various funding plans that have been utilized in the last 35 years be sure to visit the LEND website and review the power point presentation. You may access this information at www.lend-dupage.org under the meetings section.

Fiscal Focus

This week I happened to visit the website of our Illinois State Comptroller, Dan Hynes. He prepares a monthly newsletter called, Fiscal Focus. This month that newsletter features information about the funding and financial status of Illinois schools. This website will provide you with a brief but comprehensive background on school finance in Illinois. Please check out this site at www.Ioc.state.il.us.

Another valuable educational resource for DuPage County School Districts is LEND. LEND represents the Legislative Educational Network of DuPage and is made up of 35 school districts that represent almost 170,000 students in this county. This group supports a lobbyist who works exclusively on educational issues facing our area. LEND began in 1980 as a part of the Illinois School Board Association to lobby for educational issues and evolved into an independent group in 2001. LEND is highly respected and recognized as being one of the leading voices in public education in Illinois. Center Cass School District 66 is proud to be a member of this group. Visit LEND at www.lend-dupage.org.

Special Education Funding Hearing

On October 19th Representative Sandy Pihos along with Representatives Patty Bellock, Roger Jenisch, Jim Meyer, Randy Hultgren and Bob Biggins hosted a forum to gather information on the state of funding for special education services in Illinois. This forum was held at Glenbard South High School and was attended by school leaders, special education directors, teachers and parents. Representatives from CASE, SASED and NDSEC cooperatives along with Regional Superintendent Dr. Ruscitti gave an overview of funding statistics for DuPage County. Special education costs are rising exponentially and funding has been stagnant with most reimbursement formulas used in Illinois being at least 20 years old and some as old as 40 years. Costs have risen so high that the cost of providing services to children with special needs is impacting funds available for regular education programs. Federal support is stagnant and has never risen to the 40% level promised by IDEA back in the 1970’s and currently accounts for about 17% of costs, although federal regulations generally govern the required services that must be provided to special education students. A wonderful and informative power point presentation was used to highlight the historical aspects of special education funding in Illinois. This presentation is available on line at www.lend-dupage.org under the category of meetings.

Topinka Education Plan

Republican candidate for governor, Judy Baar Topinka has released her education plan. A few weeks ago I discussed Governor Blagojevich’s plan and now I would like to compare this plan to that of his opponent. The Topinka plan adds over $8 billion to educational funding over a four year period. There are many fine and well reasoned ideas and plans to be found in her program. Unlike the Blagojevich plan, the Topinka plan was developed by educators and stakeholders from throughout the state. This group included Representatives Jerry Mitchell and Roger Eddy, as well as educational groups throughout the state. There is no doubt that the Topinka plan is far superior to the Blagojevich plan in improving public education. The downside for the Topinka plan, as with the Blagojevich plan, is that of revenues to fund this plan are not entirely credible. Topinka has brought forth the idea of adding a land based gambling casino in Chicago to generate much needed additional funds. While this may be a better idea than selling the Illinois Lottery it does not seem likely to gain popular support. The unfortunate fact is that the State of Illinois really needs to increase revenues whether it is through a general tax increase or a combination of increases. I do not feel that the state can continue to sell off state assets and rob the various pension systems to pay today’s bills with tomorrow’s dollars. This practice will burden future generations. Check out the Topinka Education Plan at her web site www.judyforgov.com.

Principals Day

Friday, October 20th has been designated “Principal’s Day” in Illinois to recognize the important work of school principals. I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with some information about our building principals.

Miss Martha Smith, Principal of Prairieview School has been with Center Cass School District 66 since 1975 and has taught most elementary grades, as well as special education at Elizabeth Ide School. She also taught special education classes at Lakeview and served as Assistant Principal at Lakeview for 12 years prior to being named Principal of Prairieview School in 2000. Miss Smith earned her undergraduate degree at Western Illinois University and her graduate degree from Northern Illinois University. A note of interest about Miss Smith is that she attended neighboring Cass School District as a child and Lemont High School.

Mr. Paul Windsor, Principal of Lakeview Junior High School joined Center Cass School District 66 in 1988. Mr. Windsor taught instrumental music for 12 years and then served as Assistant Principal at Lakeview for three years prior to being appointed Principal in 2003. Mr. Windsor received his BA from Northern Illinois University and his MS from DePaul University in Chicago. Last year, he completed his requirements for his CAS in school administration from Lewis University. He is currently working on his doctorate at Northern Illinois University. Mr. Windsor is married and has two children.

Mrs. Janeise Schultz, Principal of Elizabeth Ide School began her career at Center Cass School in 1990 teaching fourth and fifth grades for 12 years at Center Cass and Prairieview before being appointed Principal of Elizabeth Ide School in 2002. Mrs. Schultz is a graduate of Drake University and earned her MS and CAS from Lewis University. She is currently working on her doctorate at Northern Illinois University. Mrs. Schultz and her husband, Rod, reside in Downers Grove.

Mrs. Kim Liles, Assistant Principal of Lakeview Junior High School joined our team in 2003. Mrs. Liles came to Center Cass School District 66 from a successful career as a special education teacher in Lombard District 44. Mrs. Liles is a graduate of Illinois State University and earned her graduate degree from National Lewis University. Mrs. Liles and her husband live in the western suburbs.

All four of these talented and dedicated educators work very hard to provide the very best programming for your children in a safe environment. Be sure to let them know you appreciate their efforts on “Principal’s Day”.

Junk Food Ban

On October 10, 2006 the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) voted to withdraw the filing prohibition on the School Food Service rules as amended by the Illinois State Board of Education. These rules will go into effect as soon as they are filed with the Secretary of State. JCAR obviously folded due to incredible pressure from the Governor who has been pushing this initiative since early last year when the Illinois Legislature refused to act on his bill to ban “junk food”. Since the Legislature would not act on this bill, the Governor invoked seldom used powers of ISBE to develop rules to circumvent the legislative process. The Legislature favored a more democratic process involving input from communities, schools, parents and nutritional experts. See text of the new rules at www.isbe.net/nutrition.


The rules that were adopted are somewhat better and more workable than those originally published, but will create many hardships for school lunch programs. Schools will be scrambling to implement these new rules in the coming months. Currently these rules only apply to students in grades K-8. The high schools have been left untouched at this time due to vendor contracts with soft drink manufacturers that would cause severe financial hardships.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in the area of nutrition since the amended rules will require ISBE to revisit nutrition standards contained in the new rules and begin a process to align them with those of the Illinois School Wellness Policy Task Force. The report of this task force is due in January of 2007. Preliminary information indicates that this report will attempt to enforce nutrition rules on lunches brought to school from home. The concept of the “Lunch Box Police” does not appeal to me! This is an example of political ambition and over regulation usurping the rights of local educational agencies and violating the concept of local control.

Ide Principalship

The Board of Education, at its October 10, 2006 meeting appointed Mrs. Jill Hansen to become the Principal of Elizabeth Ide School effective July 1, 2007. Mrs. Hansen will replace Mrs. Janeise Schultz who will be assuming the Principalship of Prairieview School upon the retirement of Principal Martha Smith. Mrs. Hansen was selected from a group of internal candidates after an extensive process that began in late May. This process included interviews with district administrators, teachers, parents and members of the Board of Education. Mrs. Hansen was the overwhelming choice of all stakeholders.

Mrs. Hansen joined District 66 in 1999 and has taught at both Prairieview and Elizabeth Ide. She currently serves as the team leader for the second grade. Mrs. Hansen received her B.A. from Elmhurst College and her M.A. in Educational Leadership from Lewis University. Prior to coming to District 66, Mrs. Hansen worked in the business world as an accounting manager at a local business firm.

Mrs. Hansen resides in Woodridge with her husband Gary. Please join us in welcoming Mrs. Hansen to her new position.

Parent Visitation

Concerns about the security of our schools and the safety of our students have led the Board of Education to direct that we cancel our formal community visitation days. In this current climate of violence and uncertainty, we feel it is not appropriate to open our buildings for visitors. Traditionally, Visitation Days were conducted with open doors allowing the free access of visitors to the schools. In this format, it was difficult to control access to our buildings and even to know who was visiting our classrooms. After three incidents of school violence in the last few weeks, we are unwilling to take a chance that might jeopardize our students.

Certainly parents are always welcome to visit our schools and see their children learning and participating in the many educational opportunities that they experience each day. If you would like to visit you child’s school, please call the school office and ask to schedule a visit. Your school will be happy to accommodate your request. Scheduling individual visits will allow the school to accommodate your visit but at the same time maintain our security and safety procedures. I hope that you will understand the need for this change and the fact that it is made in an effort to ensure the safety of our students.

District Homepage

Did you know that a summary of the Center Cass School District 66 budget for FY 07 is posted on the District Webpage at www.ccsd66.org? Look for a summary of the new budget on the District Homepage. There is also a summary of our special education cooperative budget since Center Cass School District 66 serves as the administrative and fiscal agent for SASED. Check out fresh news and events from each school under their individual headings. There is a wealth of information and links to be found on this web page.

Strategic Planning

This fall Center Cass School District 66 will begin a Strategic Planning program to develop strategic goals and priorities for the future. We are working hard to engage all stakeholders in this process and will be conducting focus groups and surveying representative groups from our district during the next two months. This process will begin in October and culminate on February 3, 2007 with a strategic planning meeting to be held at Prairieview School. Focus groups for parents will be conducted at Parent Link meetings in October and November. If you can not attend the meeting for your building please feel free to attend at one of our other buildings. Dates for these meetings are: Lakeview Junior High School, October 23, 2006, Elizabeth Ide School, October 30, 2006 and Prairieview School, November 9, 2006.

The input received from our stakeholders will be used to develop priority goals for the school district and guide our efforts in the coming years. We look forward to seeing you at one of the Parent Link meetings. Watch your building newsletter for additional details.

School Security

In light of the recent tragedies at schools in Colorado and Pennsylvania, it is appropriate to review our District Safety and Security procedures. It is our goal to provide a safe and caring environment for the children of our community. This is a very difficult task given the nature of the school and various groups that need to access the school buildings. I wanted to highlight the general procedures that are in place in the area of security. All buildings are locked during the school day. Each building is open until after the buses have arrived for the day and then the exterior doors are locked and remain so until after students are dismissed. During the school day, access to each building is by buzzer only. Our staff has been instructed to question each visitor as to the purpose of their visit and request identification if they are not recognized as a parent. Each building has video surveillance around the entry area that is monitored by office personnel.

To prepare for other emergencies that may occur during the school day, each building conducts drills for building evacuation for a fire situation, drills for taking cover and shelter in the event of a weather emergency, drills for evacuating the building due to a utility problem or other non-threatening event and also drills to lock down the building in the event of an emergency or intruder situation. We are also working on plans to deal with the eventuality of a pandemic of some sort.

In addition to these drills and other preparation, the District has developed emergency plans that are reviewed each year by local police and fire personnel. These local agencies have worked hard to support and assist us in providing a safe environment for children. You will also notice as you approach our buildings that all exit doors are numbered both inside and out to help emergency personnel identify locations in each building. The police and fire department also have site maps that we have prepared which locate and identify utility cut offs.

The safety of our children and school personnel is paramount to the District and we continue to monitor and modify our procedures constantly.

Tax Rates

Many home owners monitor their property tax rates. The burden of the property tax is extremely high in the State of Illinois. A large percent of individual tax bills is appropriated to the local school systems. The largest part of the school tax bill is the rate for the Education Fund which is the largest of the school funds. This fund pays for everything involved in the education program of the students. Salaries, insurance, administration, FICA, Medicare, pension contributions and supplies are all paid from this fund. Center Cass School District 66 has one of the lowest tax rates in our area. Our rate for the Education Fund for this year is $1.42 per hundred dollars of EAV. When you compare this rate to our neighbors; Cass District 63 at $2.07, Woodridge District 68 at $2.54, Darien District 61 at $1.92, Maercker District 60 at $2.10 and Burr Ridge District 180 at $2.02 I feel residents of Center Cass School District 66 get a big bang for their tax dollars.

In a recent annual tax rate study conducted by the Village of Woodridge the following facts about Center Cass School District 66 total tax rates were published. The tax rate for this year places the district as the 9th lowest tax rate out of 30 elementary districts in DuPage County. The tax rate declined $.07 last year and has declined on an average of 1.65% a year since 1990. Over the past fifteen years we have lost $.64 per hundred dollars of EAV due to the tax cap. While the District continues to provide high quality educational services for our community this declining tax rate continues to add stress to the school budget making it harder each year to maintain a balanced budget. We continue to explore areas to generate operating economies to reduce expenses so that programs for students may remain in place. If the current trend continues and tax rates decline, the District at some point may have to ask the community for additional funds to support the educational programs offered to our students. In the meantime, we are most proud of the programs offered for the low tax rate being levied.