No Budget Yet!

With one week to go in the fiscal year there is still no budget for FY 08. Democratic leaders and the Governor continue to posture and maneuver but little progress has been made. Pressure will increase as we approach June 30th. Last week, Governor Blagojevich announced that school districts would receive their full allotment of General State Aid and special education payments before June 30th. Naturally, he claims that that was always the plan! It is difficult to finalize a school budget when the state does not have a budget! Stay tuned.

School Year Ends

This morning concludes the 2006-2007 school year. Thanks to the entire community for your support and help to provide another year of outstanding educational services for our students. Enrichment Summer School begins on Monday, June 11th and runs for three weeks.

Summer begins with no adopted state budget and a great deal of financial uncertainty for schools in Illinois. Hopefully, our elected officials will get their act together and develop a reasonable budget to meet the needs of our state.

School building offices will remain open for the next two weeks with the District Office open all summer. District Office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 8:00 a.m. until noon on Friday. The District phone number is 783-5000.

Have a great summer!

Graduation 2007

Over 150 8th graders graduated last evening from Lakeview Junior High School. Our best wished go with these students as they move on to high school in the fall. Special Awards were presented to the following students at the graduation ceremony.

American Legion Award – Courtney Conrad and Robert Baer
Mark Alan Smith Math Award – Eric Dieckman
Michael Neumann Memorial Science Award – Sean Seelander
Matt Gerrity Memorial Athletic Award – DeShawn Elliot
Leslie Gigous Memorial Athletic Award – Kaitlin Moosmann
David Sweeney Memorial Art Award – Tiffany Wu
Corey Adams Memorial Character Award – Wesley Allen
Kristen Biss Language Arts Award – Sara Maslar-Donar
Social Studies Award – Alexander Tokarski
Principal’s Awards – Patricia Pupura and Joseph Clifford

Congratulations to the Class of 2007!

Legislature Goes Into Overtime!

Failure to develop and pass a new budget by last Thursday has forced the General Assembly into overtime. New rules apply and for the first time in two years Republicans will have a chance to participate in the budget debate. It appears that this participation by the Republicans will not specifically bring additional funds to education since they tend to support a more conservative “no-growth” budget. We will monitor the activity now that the House has been scheduled to meet three days each week through the month of June. Local news this morning announced a request by Governor Blagojevich to meet with legislative leaders each Monday and all legislators each Friday during this month to move the budget process forward. This request has not been met with any enthusiasm on the part of our legislators. The governor’s single minded focus on his pet project, “health insurance”, to the detriment of other needs has caused a great riff between his own party members and the entire legislature. Stay tuned!