The state budget impasse is forcing Peoria County’s Regional Office Of Education to dip into reserves to cover grant costs. The stalemate is also affecting annual high school testing:
Regional Superintendent Beth Derry says her Office is covering a grant that helps at-risk pre-school students with reserve funds. She says her office was told a more than million-dollar grant for the Illinois Virtual School might not get funded. That was after the office enrolled students and hired staff. Derry says using reserve funds underscores long-term financial concerns:
“Everyone knows, once you dip in the savings account at home and it's gone, then it’s gone. So we are having to think long term about the ramifications of not having that contract.”
Derry says area schools are also repeating the same process from last year for high school PARCC testing, because there’s no budget to tell educators how many tests it should plan for this year.
“When educators have their attention diverted to all of these different things and it distracts them from the mission and the purpose and the mission of a quality education, that’s not good for any of us.”
The League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria also scheduled an event Wednesday featuring Derry speaking on the topic.