A Very Cold Day

It is a very cold day! Why are we in session today? I was up at 4:00 a.m. monitoring the radio and and driving the streets of the District to check for road conditions. With the exception of Bolingbrook U- 365 no local districts were closed due to the weather. By 4:30 a.m. most streets had been cleared and were drivable. By 4:45 a.m. all school buildings had been checked for heat and were found to be operating normally. At 5:30 a.m we started our school buses to be sure that we could transport all of our students. Before 6:00 a.m. the District web page was updated to indicate that school was in session. As this is being written, custodians have almost completed shoveling snow and Center Cass School District is ready for students!

PTO Fund Raiser at Steak and Shake

The District 66 PTO is continuing to ask local restaurants to support our schools by arranging special “eating out” nights for our school community. This is a simple process and only requires that you present a coupon identifying yourself as a member of the Center Cass school community. In return, the restaurant will donate a percentage of your meal cost to the District PTO. The next dining evening is scheduled for this Thursday, January 31, 2008 at our local Steak and Shake on 75th Street in Darien. Coupons allowing the PTO to receive 20% of the value of your meal are available on the District web- page www.ccsd66.org. Dinner hours will run from 5:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. Come out and join us!

Calendar Changes

Several parents have made inquires regarding the school calendar for February, 2008. In the original school calendar approved in January of 2007, school was in session on February 5, 2008. Since the Center Cass School District 66 has decided to not hold classes on election days as a safety consideration for our students, the school calendar was amended last fall and re-published when the Illinois General Assembly moved the date for the Illinois Presidential Primary election to February 5, 2008. The amended calendar reflecting this change was placed on the Center Cass website at www.ccsd66.org and also published as part of the annual PTO Directory. We apologize for any misunderstanding regarding this issue. The reason for the change in dates is to safeguard our students during what is expected to be a high voter turnout on February 5, 2008.

Weekend Events

The cold weather makes us wish for things to do besides sit in a warm house. There are several activities this weekend that may be of interest to community members. Friday evening at Prairieview School, Elizabeth Ide School will be holding a movie night for students. The featured film will be Ratatouelle. Saturday, January 25th the Lakeview Math Team travels to the Latin School in Chicago for competition. We also have Market Day this Saturday at Lakeview. Volunteers are needed beginning at 9:30 a.m. to help unload the truck and organize the food items for packing. This is a great activity for students wishing to fulfill community service activities or adults wishing to meet their neighbors and contribute their time and energy to a valuable cause that benefits all District students. Come on out and give it a try!

District 66 Solo Contest

District 66 students have excelled in musical performance for 40 years. This past week end Lakeview Junior High School hosted the 32nd Annual Lakeview Solo Contest. Over 400 students from District 66 and Gower District 62 took part in this event. Band students in grades 5-8 performed memorized solos at their individual performance level. Students receive a rating of I, II or II for their performance and a handsome medal. Students earning a “Perfect” score earn a rating of I+ and are invited to take part in a playoff at the close of the day. Congratulations to this years outstanding soloists: Steven Birch, 8th grade, Michael Ruth, 8th Grade, Brooke Nuccio, 5th grade and Emily Foernssler, 7th grade. Thanks to teachers Brian Ohlsen and Tom Tedeschi for organizing this event and preparing are students for the solo experience.

Straight “A” Night

The Center Cass District 66 Board of Education will be recognizing those students who earned “Straight A's” during the first trimester. Students who have earned this high honor will be recognized at the regular board meeting on Tuesday evening, January 22, 2008. The recognition ceremony will take place at Prairieview School at 7:00 p.m. Congratulations to our many fine scholars.

Martin Luther King Day 2008

Schools will be closed on Monday, January 21st to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King. It is hard to believe that nearly 40 years have passed since that fateful day in 1968 when he was assassinated. I hope that you take time this weekend to reflect with your family and especially the children on Dr. King's unfulfilled dream of peace and justice for all in our land.
Classes resume on Tuesday, January 22nd.

Updated Strategic Priority Goals

Last year Center Cass District 66 was engaged in a strategic planning process. This process collected input from stakeholders and developed priority goals for the District. You can monitor our progress in achieving those goals by reviewing the second quarter goal summary that is now posted on our website at www.ccsd66.org. Summary information of the recent student deportment survey is also found on the web page. Please check it out!

FY 08 Budget Finally Implemented

The General Assembly voted last week to accept Governor Blagojevich's amendatory veto of the BIMP so the bill is finally law! The Illinois State Board of Education is busy calculating financial data so that school districts can receive the funds approved by HB 783. It is too bad that this process has lasted 6 months longer than necessary and many school districts have lost significant dollars due to the cost of borrowing money to replace state funds that were not distributed. Some of the education provisions for the BIMP include:

Distribution of ADA School Safety and Educational Black Grant funds to non-public schools which will reduce the share of funds that we will receive. Obviously, there are some political deals that have been made to use these funds for non-public purposes which is not right. Originally, $10 million additional dollars had been appropriated for the non-public schools, but that amount was not included in the BIMP. Therefore, public schools will see their share of these crucial funds reduced. It will be interesting to see if there are any constitutional challenges to spending public funds on non-public schools.

Increased reimbursement for special education teachers that will bring an additional $1,000 per certified teacher and $700 per paraprofessional to each district. The reimbursement formula has not been increased since 1985 and should be adjusted each year until it equals approximately 1/3 of the average teacher salary.

Foundation level funding will increase by $400 per student. The foundation level is now $5,734. Center Cass District 66 will not receive nearly that amount due to the “alternate funding formula” used to calculate our state aid. Since our District has a high amount of Equalized Assessed Valuation (EAV), we are severely limited in the amount of state aide we receive. I estimate that we will receive about a $15 per student increase.

Westmont Rotary Basketball Tournament

Congratulations to the Lakeview Varsity Boys and Girls basketball teams for their fine showing in the 31st Annual Westmont Rotary Basketball Tournament. After just a handful of practice sessions, the boys lost in the final game of the consolation bracket on Saturday afternoon to Old Quarry while the girls finished in Second Place in the Championship bracket on Saturday night losing to Old Quarry. Congratulations to these fine athletes and their coaches, Tom Dodd, Jacob Little and Brian Kukulski for their fine work.

Springfield News

The General Assembly returns to Springfield today, Wednesday, January 9, 2008 to begin the second half of the the two-year legislative cycle. As they convene, new bills will be numbered where they left off last year and all other bills that were introduced since June 2007 will be sent to each body's Rules Committee and then assigned to legislative committees for consideration as required.
Major topics to be addressed during this session will include; Mass Transit funding, Capital Spending plan, and Accountability Requirements for schools. Considering the animosity of the Fall Session and the overwhelming need to put the state financial house in order, this will no doubt be an interesting time in Springfield. Our financial status is at best precarious!

Governor Blagojevich Moves Budget

Last Friday, Governor Blagojevich imposed an “amendatory veto” on SB 783 the BIMP bill. The bill was flawed in that a provision to increase special education personnel reimbursement funding would have been delayed for one year. The Governor's veto fixed this flaw. Naturally, the governor's office in its usual style issued a press release stating that the Governor had given Illinois schools a funding increase of $560 million. His action did not increase any spending over that approved by the General Assembly nearly two months ago. What the Governor did do, was increase the anxiety level and create the need for extra borrowing in many school districts. Hopefully when the General Assembly convenes on January 9th , 2008 they will accept this veto and approve the bill so schools can begin to receive the promised and needed funds.

President Bush Visits Chicago

President George Bush and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings are visiting Chicago today to visit Greeley School in Chicago. They are here to highlight the sixth anniversary of President Bush's signature education bill of the No Child Left Behind Act. This laudable bill required that ALL students regardless of race, creed, or disability perform at grade level by 2014. The re-authorization of NCLB has been stalled in Congress over the past year and the President is determined to press this bill forward. While the bill is certainly noble, the devil remains in the outlandish details and lack of funding for this program. It is ironic that a major report issued last January found that NCLB has had no positive impact on student learning in Chicago and suggested many reasons for scrapping the plan. Many of the funds originally planned for this program have been diverted by politicians to support other priorities such as our military obligations. It will be interesting to hear what the President has to say regarding this bill today since he obviously considered this bill to be his greatest public policy accomplishment. It is to bad that there is no real commitment to provide the resources to truly implement NCLB. Stay tuned!