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Paw Paw And Earlville School Districts Considering Merge

Illinois has a wide variety of special districts, one of the most common being based around public schools.  They provide flexibility in collecting revenue, but sometimes, districts feel a need to consolidate in order to add resources.   Two Northern Illinois districts in particular are considering a merger.

Unlike many other states, Illinois school districts aren’t necessarily county-based.  Oftentimes, they’re tied to a city, or one of several schools within the same community.

While this proliferation of districts allows for a greater level of local control, sometimes the tax base doesn’t grow enough for an individual school to sustain itself.  Administrators say this was the case for Riverside Elementary School’s annexation by Rock Falls Elementary School in Whiteside County.  In other cases, schools may feel they can better organize themselves by working together.  For Earlville School District in LaSalle County, and Paw Paw School District in Lee County, it’s a mixture of both.  Paw Paw Superintendent Stan Adcock explains.  

“Financially, we continue to lose dollars from the state.  As far as student numbers, our numbers started shrinking, we’ve made a lot of cuts and at the current moment, we’re bare bones, in terms of what I consider staff and everything that we offer,” he says. 

Paw Paw has around 180 students, while Earlville is larger, at 450.   One red flag for Paw Paw was that they could no longer field an independent soccer team.  This year, they’re playing with students from Earlville, but Earlville Principal Rich Faivre says consolidation could offer much more. 

"We have about 40 kids in our high school.  The idea of maybe being able to blend our kids together in a high school and make a school of 200 or a little bit more.  Obviously, the amount of programming we could offer is a lot better," he says. 

To that end, the two districts have begun the process by commissioning a feasibility study.  Faivre says this involves scrutinizing the two districts thoroughly. 

“Everything from facilities to programming to staff to transportation.  There’s a whole myriad of issues that they look at and then they will come back and they will give recommendations,” he explains. 

The team consists of experts from the University of Illinois - Springfield.  Adcock says their leader, Bill Phillips, is a familiar face.

“He’s actually a part of the IASA, which is the Illinois Association of School Administrators.  That’s the group that Superintendents belong to, so he’s got an affiliation with that.   They do, if I remember his numbers, about 70% of the feasibility numbers in the state.  They’re well respected and do a great job,” he said.

For both administrators, the ideal configuration would be both districts keeping their elementary schools, while each area either had a high or middle school.  In this way, they believe assets will be evenly spread.

“Everybody’s going to have their own opinion as to who should have what and what should be what but in the end it’s the kids.  They’re going to benefit out of this.  I firmly believe that,” Faivre says. 

The two administrators say their school boards have been quite cooperative and the community is eager to see what the feasibility study recommends.  However, the process isn’t without obstacles.  Adcock says both districts have been quite competitive in terms of athletics, and for at least some members of the community, there may not be the desire to join up.  Yet he remains optimistic. 

"The older generations might struggle with it, but, like Rich was just telling me, we have a student who plays on their baseball team in the summer.  We have a lot of students who play in summer leagues for basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball.   Those students, Earlville and Paw Paw, get along famously," he said. 

Earlville and Paw Paw are in separate special education districts, so it's unclear which one they would belong to should the consolidation go through.  There is also the question of financial benefits. Both districts would become a single tax base, and money could be saved by eliminating redundant positions.  However, Adcock says state benefits may not be forthcoming, particularly with the recent budget  impasse. 

“The state gives money based on the number of teachers that you have for four years if I’m correct about that.  So there’s an incentive the state also pays on top of that, which helps you get everything organized and make everything get rolling toward that.  Financially there should be benefits, but in the current state of our state, I will not guarantee any bit of this,” he says.  

The feasibility study is expected to take three months.   However, there would still be a significant gap between the end of that study and when both counties hold a vote. 

“Realistically, if they had the feasibility study done, went and threw together the committees of ten, we could have pushed to try to get it on the November ballot.  It’s just not going to happen and we don’t’ want it to happen that fast, so April is the soonest we could get it done," he said. 

If the study’s recommendations are accepted, both Earlville and Paw Paw would need to pass separate referenda to approve any final consolidation.  In the meantime, Adcock and Faivre will continue to hold meetings and keep their constituents informed about new developments.  

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