August 20, 2026 Immediately Following the FY27 Budget Hearing - August 20, 2026

Description:  The meeting is called to order.

Description:  The Board recognizes the public in attendance.

Description:  The following items are recommended for placement on the consent agenda, unless the Board wishes separate action on an item.

Description:  Attached are the minutes from the June 17, 2026 Board of Directors Meeting. 

Description:  The Board is requested to approve the June/July/August invoices in the amount of $2,278,891.76, the June payroll in the amount of $4,889,314.89, the ESY 2026 Payroll in the amount of $1,124,889.58, the July Payroll in the amount of $323,080.06 and the estimated amount of $2,500,000 for the August payroll.

Description:  Listed below are the Professional Personnel whose employment is recommended for Board approval.  

 

Description:  Listed below are the Educational Support Personnel whose employment is recommended for Board approval.
 

Name		Position	Program	Start Date	Step/Column or Days	Annual Salary
Andrews, June		Paraeducator	MGW	8/5/2026	20/BA	$41,442.00
Burton, Ebony		Paraeducator	MGW	8/5/2026	2/+90	$31.373.00
Cannon-Young, Renee		Paraeducator	CD	8/5/2026	10/BA	$36,764.00
Green, Keletha		Paraeducator	Transition	8/5/2026	6/BA	$34,764.00
Herron, Tyana		Paraeducator	CD	8/5/2026	4/License	$29,172.00
Hudson, Sheri		Paraeducator	DESTINY	8/5/2026	9/License	$31,889.00
Isla, Genalyn		Paraeducator	MGW	8/5/2026	13/License	$33,579.00
Iverson, Frank		Paraeducator	Braun	8/5/2026	15/+90 hrs	$37,506.00
Johnson, Jeremiah		Paraeducator	MGW	8/5/2026	4/+60	$30,992.00
Karajeh, Ghada		Paraeducator	DESTINY	8/5/2026	17/+90	$38,388.00
Kunka, Sonya		Paraeducator	Transition	8/17/2026	11/BA	$37,256.00
McWalter, Jeanette		Nurse	DESTINY	8/5/2026	32/BA	$95,907.00
Ondera, Phillip		Paraeducator	Transition	8/5/2026	10/BA	$36,764.00
Volz, Jaime		Paraeducator	CD	8/5/2026	1/+60	$29,593.00

                    

Description:  Listed below are the professional personnel resignations presented for acceptance by the Board of Directors.
 

Name		Position	Program	Effective Date
Adamczyk, Andrea		Speech Language Pathologist	MGW	8/12/2026
Kielbowicz, Andrea		Speech Language Pathologist	CD	6/2/2026
Martin, Michelle		Teacher	DESTINY	7/15/2026

Description:  Listed below are the educational support personnel resignations presented for acceptance by the Board of Directors. 
 

Resignation of Educational Support Personnel

Name		Position	Program	Effective Date
Bowman, Dianna		Paraeducator	Transition	6/30/2026
Boyd, Raye		Paraeducator	Transition	8/6/2026
Magnuson, Paul		Interpreter	DHH	7/22/2026
Neary, Allyson		Driver	Transition	7/21/2026
Williams, LaShanda		Paraeducator	DESTINY	7/21/2026
Susan, Pallay		Paraeducator	Transition	7/7/2026

           

Description:  Listed below is information regarding leaves of absence requested by staff members.
 

Request for Leave of Absence

Name		Position	Program	Type of Leave	Effective Dates
Beesley, Katrina		Interpreter	DHH	FMLA	8/5/2026-10/28/2026
Granata, Tara		Paraeducator	CD	Intermittent FMLA	8/5/2026-5/28/2027
Greenspan, Amy		Paraeducator	Braun	Intermittent FMLA	8/5/2026-5/28/2027
Lukes, Traci		Secretary	DESTINY	Intermittent FMLA	8/5/2026-6/30/2027
Vasquez, Tracy		Paraeducator	MGW	FMLA	8/13/2026-9/18/2026

Description:  The following policies are new, suggested for a 5 Year Review or suggested for revision and adoption by the Policy Reference Education Subscription Service (PRESS) through the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB).  The policies are as follows:

Description:  The Board will retire to closed session to discuss:

• The purchase or lease of real property for the use of the Cooperative, including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired. 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(5).

Description:  The Board will return to open session.

Description:  The Professional Development (PD) Assessment was established after the Cooperative discontinued retaining a portion of each member district’s annual IDEA grant funds.  Some member districts utilize this assessment to help satisfy the IDEA grant requirement to allocate at least 5% of their funding toward professional development.

Understanding the PD Assessment 

To clarify a common misconception, the PD Assessment does not directly reflect the amount of professional development provided to your specific district staff.  Instead, these funds are used primarily to support Cooperative staff who serve member-district students, covering both mandatory certifications (e.g., CPI, First Aid) and supplemental training.
While the vast majority of these expenditures support Cooperative personnel, member-district staff are always welcome to attend Cooperative-hosted professional development—such as Administrator Academies and legal update sessions—at no additional cost.

Assessment Allocation

Each district’s financial contribution is based on its share of fall housing enrollment from the prior year.
 

Description:  The preliminary 2026-27 tuition and service rates will be shared prior to the meeting.
 

Description:  The Executive Director will share highlights from each of the Cooperative Programs.

Description:  Below is a list of students who are on a waiting list.

Description:  On August 3, 2026, Sheri Reid, a Data Acquisition Specialist for SmartProcure, made a FOIA request for Purchasing Records from 1/1/2022 to the current request date of 8/3/2026.  

Specifically, Ms. Reid requested:

Readily available, fully electronic documents.

• For the purpose of this request, "fully electronic" refers to dynamic PDF, Excel (csv., xlsx.), TXT or RTF files containing active text.
• Files containing active text should allow the user to use their mouse/trackpad to highlight, select, copy and paste the text from the file.
• If you would like report samples from your agency’s financial software, please provide us with the software name in your response.

Responsive reports include those containing the following details per purchase:

1 Unique Identifier (i.e. PO #, Invoice #, Check #, Encumbrance #, etc.)

• Purchase Date
• Line item details
• Line item quantity
• Line item price

Vendor ID number, name, address, contact person and their email address

The request was satisfied on August 3, 2026.
 

Description:  The Cooperative will be implementing BoardBook Premiere for all Board Meetings starting with our September 17, 2026 Board Meeting.  This web-based service will modernize our agenda compilation, public notification, and meeting archiving practices. 

Board members must determine whether to use their district or cooperative email account to access BoardBook.  Additionally, Superintendents who currently use BoardBook will have the ability to toggle between their District and Cooperative profiles.
 

Description:  The Cooperative will be implementing SuperEval to conduct my evaluation for 2026-2027.  SuperEval is an online, collaborative, and evidence-based process to evaluate superintendents. The system saves time, improves communication, and drives continuous professional growth.

A welcome email and login credentials should have been sent to your Cooperative email address on 8/18/2026. Laurie Catanzaro will serve as district clerk and will be able to reset your password and assist with navigating the platform. 

I propose the following timeline for my evaluation:

Timeline:                                          Step:

September 17, 2026                       Formally present my 2026-2027 goals.
December 11, 2026                         Self-evaluation and supporting
                                                        evidence for goals due in SuperEval.
December 17-January 21, 2027      Board Members review self-rating and
                                                         evidence and issue individual ratings.
January 21-February 12, 202          Board President to review all entries
                                                         and finalizes the evaluation.
February 18, 2027                           Final evaluation is presented and
                                                        signed.
 

Description:  In 2026-2027, the last day of school for programs in Cooperative building sites and satellite locations is Friday, June 11, 2027 (Arbor Park Middle School, which houses 2 CD classrooms and 2 DESTINY classrooms).

The earliest ESY could begin is Monday, June 14, 2027. 

In an effort to keep our ESY days in FY27, we will run ESY for 12 days as opposed to the historical 15 days. To make up some of the instructional time, we will extend each day by half an hour (8:30am - 3:00pm instead of 8:30am - 2:30pm).
 

Description:  The Cooperative currently allows for non-member school district enrollments when there is classroom space and program personnel who can serve the student without negatively affecting member district placements.  Historically, there has been a ten percent tuition premium charged to non-member districts.  This tuition revenue was used to offset member district tuition in the respective program.

Starting this school year, the Cooperative will require non-member school districts to sign intergovernmental agreements.  These agreements will increase the premium to twenty percent and clarify that no refunds will be issued after year-end reconciliations.

The non-member intergovernmental agreement template is attached.
 

Description:  The tentative FY27 budget was presented at the June 17, 2026 Board Meeting.  The budget has been made available for public inspection from July 1st until August 20th at the SWCCCASE Administration Building.  The public has been invited to provide comments during the public hearing held prior to this Board Meeting.

The FY27 budget is attached.
 

Description:  For SY27 there are 103 certified staff evaluations (58 non-tenured/probationary and 43 tenured/continuing certified staff members - teachers, social workers, SLPs, OTs, PTs, and nurses), 14 sign-language interpreters, and 7 secretaries to be evaluated. 


Historically, the 10 program supervisors have each been assigned 8 evaluations for their certified staff/secretaries due to many of them being the only administrator at their site/program and in consideration of their day-to-day roles and responsibilities. 

• 

Time allocations to complete one certified staff evaluation is quite extensive, based on the adapted Danielson model the Coop follows. 

2026-2027 Certified Staff Evaluation
Time allocations

Certified Non-tenured/Probationary 
1 evaluation planning meeting (30 min)
2 Pre-observation meetings (30-45 min each)
2 formal observations (45-60 min each)
2 formal post-observation meetings (30-45 minutes)
1 informal observation (30-45 minutes)
Observation write-ups/Evidence pairing in Evaluwise (60 minutes per observation)
Summative preparation (60-90 minutes)
1 summative meeting (30-60 minutes)
540 minutes (9 hours) - 705 minutes (11 hours 45 minutes)


Tenured/Continuing Employees
1 evaluation planning meeting (30 min)
1 Pre-observation meeting (30-45 minutes)
1 formal observation (45-60 minutes)
1 formal post-observation meeting (30-45 minutes)
1 informal observation  (30-45 minutes)
Observation write-ups/Evidence pairing in Evaluwise (60 minutes per observation)
Summative preparation (60-90 minutes)
1 summative meeting (30-60 minutes)
375 minutes (6 hours 15 minutes) - 495 minutes (8 hours 15 minutes)

Going back to 2015, the Cooperative has contracted with two retired special education administrators, Diane Gallik and Denise Bettenhausen, to help cover the overflow of certified evaluations. 

I recommend that the Board approve Diane Gallik for 40 days at her daily rate ($600/day) and Denise Bettenhausen for 30 days ($450/day) to cover those evaluations and be available for administrative subbing, should anything come up that myself or Lisa Promis could not cover.

 

Description:  The following items are recommended for approval on the consent agenda, unless the Board wishes separate action on an item.

• The open and closed session minutes of the June 17, 2026 Board Meeting
• Invoices and Payroll
• Employment of Professional Personnel
• Employment of Educational Support Personnel
• Resignation of Professional Personnel
• Resignation of Educational Support Personnel
• Request for Leave of Absence
• Board Policies - First Reading