AREA SCHOOL DISTRICTS ask for restructuring of Four Rivers board
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By Carmen Ensinger
The Four Rivers Special Education District serves children from birth to age 21 in 19 districts and their surrounding communities. These communities are located in Greene, Scott, Calhoun, Pike, Cass, Macoupin, Morgan and Brown counties.
Based in Jacksonville, they offer a wide variety of services to the children they serve in these counties. They are governed by a council comprised of representatives from each school district as well as an operating board of nine members that meet monthly. Their goal is to make sure each student’s unique needs are met.
However, not all school districts are entirely satisfied with the way the board is comprised. At the December Carrollton school board meeting, Carrollton School District Superintendent Jason Board submitted a resolution to the board to be passed that calls for the restructuring of the Four Rivers operating board.
“Right now, the way that it is represented is you have nine members on this operating board,” Bauer said. “Four of them include superintendents, and five are school board members.”
The four superintendents are from Greenfield, Jacksonville, Winchester and Pleasant Hill while the school board members hail from North Greene, Northwestern, Jacksonville, Pikeland and Meredosia. Carrollton has no representation on the board.
“With no one from this school district being an active member of this operating board, how will we get any information on what is going on in the special education world unless I deliberately go and attend these meetings,” Bauer said. “The director has invited us to come to the roundtable that is held prior to the meeting each month and I have been attending those, but I would like to see, and there is a desire as well among other area superintendents, to have a seat at the table and be able to participate on the operating board.”
Apparently, over the summer, a vote was taken by the operating board to change the structure of the board and the board voted they didn’t want to change it.
“There are 19 districts that are part of Four Rivers and about three-fourths of the districts weren’t informed of what was going on at the time (of the vote to restructure),” Bauer said. “Now, they are starting to see resolutions passed in the various school districts to support this because the word has been taken back to the districts. I think at the time that vote was taken people didn’t know and just weren’t informed.”
Carrollton school board, as well as Greenfield school board, passed the resolution asking for the restructuring of the board.
“At the end of the day, I think superintendents want to be more directly involved with the education of students needing special services in their districts,” Bauer said.
