LM January 2017

With this law now in place, we will continue to work with the General Assembly and Governor Rauner to try and achieve school funding reform using the Evidence-Based Model, another pivotal piece of the Vision 20/20 blueprint for the future of public education in Illinois. Of course, we also will continue to push for a FY18 PreK- 12 budget as well as mandated categorical payments. Unless those payments are made by the state many

school districts will be in worse shape than they were a year ago despite the General State Aid formula being funded. SAFE fund gets big boost The IASA School Administrators Foundation for Education (SAFE) got a big boost recently when the recently dissolved Northern Illinois University-Society of Educational Administrators (NIU-SEA) made a $10,000 contribution. “As our intention is to promote assistance for aspiring superintendents, we thought the Moon Scholarship would be a good venue for such a donation,” said Dr. Bruce Brown, the Executive Director of the North Cook Intermediate Service Center, and a representative of the NIU-SEA. The SAFE provides funding for the James V. and Dorothy B. Moon Scholarship Program. IASA annually awards the Moon Scholarships to aspiring superintendents or for current superintendents to pursue graduate study. We certainly appreciate that Dr. Brown and the other members of the NIU-SEA Board of Directors thought of SAFE as a recipient of their funds. We will put those funds to good use.

“Finally, when I talk about hope despite all of the challenges facing public education in 2017, I am most encouraged by the way our superintendents tackle their responsibilities on a daily basis—with enthusiasm, purpose and being mindful of their awesome responsibilities to the schoolchildren in their communities.”

Alliance Leadership Summit set for Feb. 21-22 Registration is now open for the 2017 Alliance Leadership Summit to be held in Springfield. This will be the second biennial Summit that includes school administrators, school board members, school business officials and principals coming together to learn about and discuss timely issues of importance to public education in Illinois. The main topics of discussion this time around will be school funding reform, the public education budget and the implications of the possible “grand bargain” mentioned above. The Summit provides a unique opportunity for front-line educators and school board members to come together for a statewide strategy session. The 2015 Summit received very high marks from attendees and we would love to see you at the upcoming Summit! A real reason for hope Finally, when I talk about hope despite all of the challenges facing public education in 2017, I am most encouraged by the way our superintendents tackle their responsibilities on a daily basis—with enthusiasm, purpose and being mindful of their awesome responsibilities to the schoolchildren in their communities. Twenty-one have been chosen by their peers in the IASA regions as Superintendents of Distinction. They will be honored at a luncheon in Springfield on April 24 and they are listed on Pages 10-12 of this issue of Leadership Matters. Each honoree is deserving based on their accomplishments, but they would be the first to tell you that they are simply representative of the type of efforts and achievements going on all over our state. And that does give me hope that transcends politics.

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