Unit 5 School Board

The Unit 5 school board spent more than three hours Wednesday digging into which stark cuts to potentially make — given the district’s $11 million deficit.

Unit 5 school district leaders said Wednesday they are disappointed the education fund tax referendum did not pass on Tuesday. Superintendent Kristen Weikle tells WGLT they knew it would be a close vote, but hoped for passage to allow the district to eliminate an $11 million deficit that is growing each year.

Unit 5 school district leaders said Wednesday they are disappointed the education fund tax referendum did not pass on Tuesday. Superintendent Kristen Weikle tells WGLT they knew it would be a close vote, but hoped for passage to allow the district to eliminate an $11 million deficit that is growing each year.

The central argument for a Unit 5 education fund referendum is that district revenue has not kept pace with costs since the last referendum in 2008, that the district has, in effect, squeezed all the blood it can out of the existing turnip by tightening its belt and using resources efficiently and needs help. The numbers support the case.

The McLean County school district denied four resignations, submitted by special education teachers weeks before the first day of school.

The Unit 5 school board expects to vote next month on whether to join a collaborative effort to create standardized incentives in the local enterprise zone.

Three additional public information meetings are planned for May, to address Unit 5’s multimillion-dollar deficit.

For the second year in a row, Unit 5 expects to draw more than 1,000 students to its summer school programs in an effort to help close education gaps created by the pandemic.

Despite a year filled with controversy over busing problems, Unit 5 will keep First Student next year.

Unit 5 leaders are looking at cutting three dozen full-time teaching positions and two administrator roles for next school year, as well as eliminating two programs — fifth-grade band/orchestra and eighth-grade foreign language — to address a multi-million dollar deficit.