An organization opposed to the potential closure of Carlock Elementary School continued to raise concerns during Wednesday's Unit 5 school board meeting.
The school closure was under consideration during preliminary informational meetings presented by consultant Cropper GIS that next month will provide draft options of possible solutions to enrollment challenges in Unit 5.
“At minimum, we deserve a thoughtful, transparent and accurate review,” said Jillian Nelson, community organizer of Keep Carlock Elementary Open. “The district has demonstrated no meaningful cost savings while asking more than 100 children to absorb the full burden of the disruptions, longer bus rides, lost stability, lost identity, lost community.”
About two dozen public commenters, including a few current Carlock students, spoke during the meeting to argue the school’s academic performance, enrollment consistency, classroom sizes and quality of teaching are among the reasons why closing the school is unnecessary.
Unit 5 does not have a formal recommendation yet. Two board members, Stan Gozur and Amy Roser, sit on an internal planning committee tasked with analyzing enrollment trends and developing new boundary options.
“We are not looking to aggressively close buildings,” said Gozur. “We are evaluating how we are using our buildings.”
Gozur said the district is following a number of objectives that can be accomplished with the results of the survey. They include balancing school facility utilization, diversity, close proximity to home for students, transit efficiency, striving for contiguous attendance zones where possible, demographic shifts, minimizing impact for students and considering major road and geographical boundaries.
Board member Patrick Mainieri found Gozur's comments "valuable," but also requested more information in the future about how the committee was working.
“I, as a board member, don’t feel that I even had that much information shared with me about how the internal planning committee is operating,” said Mainieri.
There is a reason for this. Alex Williams, board president, said only two members can serve on a particular committee. Any larger group of public officials in place would require a public meeting to be held.
“To do it any other way would be a violation of the Open Meetings Act,” said Williams.
Still, Mainieri said the process makes it to be hard for many to digest.
"While the internal planning committee is having the opportunity to process data analysis and go deep into data, we the public are focusing on processing data and emotions at the exact same time, which is causing a lot of the conflict that we're seeing," he said.
Teacher resignation
Also Wednesday, the school board approved a measure to not accept a teacher’s resignation.
Teachers are allowed to resign with approval from their respective school board, but a school district still has the right to reject a resignation if the loss would affect the current or soon-to-begin school year.
Heather Rogers, director of human resources, said Kathryn Monti left the district mid-year, and with no prior notice, for a new teaching assignment. It was for that reason that her resignation received by the school board was not found in accordance with the school code.
“The board's obligation is to staff and students, and we have to make sure that our students have an opportunity to learn and grow throughout their school year,” said Rogers. “Having a teacher leave makes it kind of disruptive in that learning environment.”
The resignation opens Monti open to more issues. By rejecting the resignation, the school board referred the resignation to the state superintendent of education for a possible one-year suspension of Monti's teaching license.
Rogers added Unit 5 offered her alternate roles or schools to continue with the district, but those offers were declined.
New school calendar
The school board also approved the 2026-27 school calendar. Aug. 20, a Thursday, is the first full day of school. Like District 87, the calendar was approved with no day off for election day.
While the state still has yet to determine whether the day is a state holiday, Unit 5 can still pivot to making it a day off if required. Currently, the Friday of that week [Nov. 5] is a day with no student attendance.
