North Greene to stay in Egyptian Trust

By Editor | April 23, 2026 |

By Carmen Ensinger

“Patience is a virtue” and Good things come to those who wait”. Both are classic proverbs that can describe North Greene School District’s enrollment in the Egyptian Trust, the provider of the district’s health insurance benefits.
The Trust was established in 1984 by public school districts in South Central Illinois to provide health benefits for employees at reasonable costs. The expectation was that by pooling claims experience and by controlling benefit design and operating costs the Trust could offer better benefits, lower premiums and provide protection against the large premium increases often experienced by smaller school districts.
However, five or six years ago, the district found that things were not going well and it sought to get out of the trust and shop for insurance on the open market. However, due to the structure of the trust, it had to “buy” out of the Trust, which, at the time, would cost well over $200,000, which would have made any savings that the district might incur by switching carriers, null and void.
So, they chose to stay and ride out the storm. Good thing they did because, as it turns out, things have turned around for the better.
North Greene School Board member Stacy Schutz, who is also a member of the insurance committee informed the board of what took place at a meeting recently.
“On Monday we went over the possible changes – the alternates between the health, dental, vision and life, and nobody can beat what the Trust is doing right now,” Schutz said. “Even if we get a 14 percent increase, which is kind of where tier 2 might be, which is where we are at.”
Superintendent Jackie Kuchy said she had spoken with them earlier in the day and the increase was expected to be lower than 14 percent.
“None of the other plans compared to what we have for the same money,” Schutz said. “So, the recommendation from the insurance committee is that we should stick with the Trust.”
Kuchy said the one thing that came out of that conversation was about the Springfield Clinic again.
“We just thought we would include that in the survey,” she said. “If you recall, we didn’t opt for that option because our check runs for Springfield Clinic were fairly minimal and if we went back and included them it actually raised the price of all the services people were receiving from their other providers that were in the previous network.”
In other words, people would have been basically paying more for the same service, but Springfield Clinic would have been considered in the network at the time. Schutz said most people have already switched providers away from Springfield Clinic anyway by now and it isn’t as necessary.
Another option the district is exploring is offering deals with mental health.
“Back in 2022 an option came for the district to choose to pay a membership per person per month of $1.41 for this program called Calm Psych and it provides some counseling in areas of mental health, in financial, other life aspects such as parenting and marriage,” Kuchy said. “So the district would choose to pay for that for all of its members. It is not something you would charge for. There are 24 districts who are participating in that program and they have never heard any complaints. So that is something else that we are going to maybe include in a survey – just asking if people might be interested in that.”
Jr./Sr. High Principal Brett Berry reported that the number of chronically absent students last year from the previous year had significantly dropped. Students are labeled chronically absent if they miss more than 10 percent of the available school days.
“We crunched those numbers the other day, and for the 2025-26 report, 55 out of our 327 students qualify as being chronically absent to this point,” Berry said. “That is 16.8 percent of our kids. Last year the 2024-25 report school snapshot had 35 percent of our students labeled as chronically absent, so that is a ridiculously high improvement for us. To be drooping from 35 percent to 16.8 percent – that means kids are missing a lot less school, which is great.”
Following the approval of the consent agenda items, there was a re-organization of the board, which consists of the election of a board president, vice president, secretary and treasurer for the coming year.
The board decided it was happy with the way it was so Cale Hoesman will remain President for another year; Rachelle Malin, vice president; Rhonda Lawson, secretary and Patty Baldes, treasurer.
The board accepted the resignation of Vance Dirksmeyer as Buildings and Grounds Maintenance Supervisor, effective April 10. The position has already been posted on their website and on social media.
Kuchy said they had received their AIR needs assessment that they will be reviewing and that, required by the state, they have to spend $41,000 of grant money on.
“We are kind of talking about some summer sessions, particularly like credit recovery and how we have handled credit recovery at the jr.sr. high,” she said. “With the attendance issues and giving them the chance to come and make up the course, given what the practice has been, we want to see if that is the way we want to keep doing that.”