Keven D. Forney is superintendent of schools at Oakwood CUSD 76 in Fithian, Illinois.
More than 100 people attended a presentation at the 2005 Joint Annual Conference about a cooperative high school initiative undertaken by the Oakwood, Catlin and Jamaica school districts. The nine people on the panel not only outlined the reasons compelling the three districts to pursue the cooperative high school as a means of school reorganization but also laid out the next steps to be taken by the three school districts.
During questions, an attendee wondered if the group would share more information as the process moved toward formation of a cooperative high school in southwest Vermilion County. That hasn’t happened yet because challenges have stalled formation of the Oakwood-Catlin-Jamaica cooperative high school. However, the information provided here may serve as guidance to other districts considering a jointly run high school program.
Section 10-22.22c of the Illinois School Code authorizes the formation of cooperative high schools. This form of school reorganization has been available to Illinois districts for several years, but until recently was never successfully exercised. Modeled after special education cooperatives, the cooperative high school is jointly supported by the districts that participate in its formation.
Key features are:
• Each participating district pays a per-capita charge that reflects the cost of running the total program.
• Oversight is provided by a governing board made up of representatives from the school boards of each participating district.
• A cooperative agreement must be drafted and adopted by each participating district to establish all parameters for the cooperative’s operation.
• Each participating district must commit to the new cooperative for at least 20 years, unless they undergo other reorganization.
• The cooperative high school is not a separate district, does not levy taxes and is not required to employ a separate superintendent.
The formation of a new cooperative high school does not signal an end to the existence of each participating school district. As with a special education cooperative, the resulting high school functions as an independent educational agency, while still under the combined governance of the cooperating school boards. Paris is the only current cooperative high school in the state.
Common needs, interests
As a first-time superintendent to Oakwood in 2003, my formal preparation and previous experience did not provide me with any inkling of the concept of the cooperative high school. During the latter part of my first year, I spoke with Guy Banicki, then superintendent at Catlin CUSD 5, and Wayne Scarlett, superintendent at Jamaica CUSD 12, about the needs of our respective school districts.
Banicki and I both thought our districts needed to upgrade instructional programs and high school facilities. Scarlett said Jamaica’s biggest need was a richer, more comprehensive curriculum.
The three of us were aware that our districts attempted to consolidate in the early 1990’s, but voters rejected the measure by a margin of nearly three to one. Scarlett was involved a few years earlier in an unsuccessful effort to form a cooperative high school in northern Vermilion County, and brought it up as a way to combine resources to improve the educational program and provide a modern high school facility.
The three of us individually presented the idea to our boards, with very positive results. The three boards each appointed two representatives to a joint committee to meet and discuss the possibility of a cooperative high school. The school boards in Catlin, Jamaica and Oakwood came to support the cooperative high school as a form of reorganization that would satisfy curriculum and facility needs while preserving the continued identity and autonomy of each participating school district.
Our school boards understood the challenge they faced in developing support for passage of the ballot question. The measure would permanently alter the high school identity in each community. A referendum on the sale of construction bonds also was needed on the same ballot as the cooperative high school question in each district, since a new school to accommodate roughly 650 students would be needed as well as an upgraded instructional program.
The prevailing opinion was the idea might find significant voter support since it would make possible the creation of a quality high school program and facility without losing the identity of the individual school districts or saddle any one district with a disastrous amount of debt.
Greg Wolfe, the Oakwood board president and a member of the original joint committee, summed up his reasons to support the initiative with this: “I see the value in a cooperative high school being the fact all three districts maintain local control of their grade schools and junior high schools. I also see the cooperative high school concept as an excellent opportunity to bring all three districts’ high school students together and to be able to expand and enhance the academic and extra-curricular offerings.”
Financial assistance
Even during the first conversations, the need for financial assistance was openly acknowledged. A modern high school to accommodate combined grades 9-12 from the three high schools would require more funds than feasible under the combined debt limit of all the school districts. Transitional costs for new furnishings, new instructional programs and modern technological hardware also were anticipated.
However, when the three superintendents began talking about a cooperative high school, little financial assistance was available. At that time, potential cooperative high schools did not qualify for school construction grants because they did not meet the definition of a “school district.” Additionally, potential cooperative high schools did not qualify for the additional state aid financial incentives that were are available to other forms of school reorganization.
We sought help early on from our local legislators, Bill Black and Rick Winkle, who in turn developed support from some of their colleagues. This led to the first significant change in 2005 with the passage of Public Act 93-1094, which secured eligibility for construction grants for cooperative high schools. The following year, Public Act 94-0902 granted eligibility to cooperative high schools for the following incentives:
• Additional state aid to make up the difference in salaries could be paid to the cooperative high school for four years after its formation.
• $4,000 per full-time certified staff position will be paid to the cooperative high school for a period of three years.
By fall 2006, the necessary legislative groundwork was finally in place and the sense was that the time to take the question of whether or not to form a cooperative high school was not too far in the future.
At this point in our efforts, the actual funding for capital projects began to disappear. The three district superintendents felt that, since our cooperative high school would require a new facility, the question of the cooperative’s formation would not go to the voters unless we were confident that state construction funding would be available.
This was not foreseen as a serious problem in fall 2006, but it became clear in the following months that any assurance of state construction funding would be delayed. The state budget woes of the past three years dampened hopes for the award of a construction grant for our proposed cooperative high school. The lack of any imminent funding continues to keep our three districts from putting the formation of a cooperative high school in front of the voting public.
Waiting for better times
We generated a great deal of interest in the early days of pursuing a cooperative high school in southwest Vermilion County. Our committee held a series of public meetings that drew progressively larger audiences and the idea was a topic of conversation in our communities.
However, the hiatus on our efforts imposed by the dearth of capital funding has led to a dissipation of interest in our proposed cooperative. Since the presentation at the Joint Annual Conference in 2005, Catlin superintendent Banicki has retired and all three boards of education experienced changes in membership. Those who were students in 2003-05 are now young adults, and different students have taken their place.
But the idea has not died. There quietly remains a strong level of belief in the value of a cooperative high school to the secondary education needs of the students in Catlin, Jamaica and Oakwood.
“There is still good support for the cooperative,” said Gary Lewis, current Catlin superintendent. “Construction of a new high school is still the strength of the idea, but is also what is holding up the issue.”
From Oakwood board member Wolfe’s perspective, “I think there is still interest in forming the cooperative high school, but without state funding to help us construct a new high school, the idea remains on hold.”
Notwithstanding the current lack of activity in the formation of the Catlin-Jamaica-Oakwood cooperative high school, the concept of a cooperatively run high school is a valuable school reorganization option.
Consolidation votes are not certain to be successful. One theme heard repeatedly in each of our three school districts was that people would not vote away their local school district out of fear of what such a decision would do to their local communities.
Cooperative high schools are ideal vehicles to better serve the academic needs of students in rural areas by combining the resources of two or more neighboring school districts, while communities would not lose their local school districts or their local voice in the education of students. State agencies could deal with a lower number of high schools than at present, without the formation of additional school districts.
A cooperative high school might also increase the possibility of additional reorganization, such as consolidation, as the districts continue to work together to provide a unified high school program.
For the present, school leaders in Catlin, Jamaica and Oakwood continue to stand by until economic conditions take a positive turn. Until they do, the vision of a future in which the high school students of the three districts will attend a modern high school that provides students a comprehensive and rich curriculum is deferred, but remains a long-term goal.