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School reps in Springfield to ask for education funding

Students, superintendents and school board members from the area are in Springfield today to impress upon policy makers the impact no education funding next year would have on school districts.

Regional Superintendent Jodi Scott tells WGIL that representatives from almost all of the nine districts that make up ROE 33 are accompanying her to the capital.

“We hope to understand where they stand and how things are going and if anything’s changing in Springfield,” Scott says. “And we hope to in turn educate our legislators on the impact that a budget impasse will have on our school districts locally.”

Scott says the delegation was scheduled to meet with Representatives Don Moffitt, Norine Hammond, Randy Frese, Pat Verschoore, Senators John Sullivan and Chuck Weaver and Illinois Secretary of Education Beth Purvis.

The nine ROE 33 districts met last night at Knoxville High School where superintendents laid out the extent to which they rely on state funds and what may happen if there’s no state education budget and they don’t receive those funds.

Knoxville, Galesburg, Monmouth-Roseville and ROWVA districts say they might have to shut schools down as early as this winter.

According to data from Illinois Report Card for the 2014-15 school year those four districts comprise about 8,115 students, about 65 percent which are low-income and 14 percent have some form of disability.

There are also about 1,310 employees.

The General Assembly’s legislative session ends on May 31 after which an education funding bill would require a 3/5 majority instead of a simple majority.

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