Greenfield sees minimal increase in insurance rates

By Editor | July 7, 2026 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Greenfield School District has cause to celebrate – they have the lowest increase in property/casualty insurance rates of the three school districts in the county.
Greenfield Superintendent Andy Stump informed the board at the June 29 meeting that this year’s increase would be just 2.57 percent. In comparison, Carrollton’s rate of increase sits at 6.43 percent while North Greene is entertaining a 5 percent increase.
Stumpf can only hazard a guess as to why their increase is so minimal.
“I think it is probably because we haven’t had very many claims,” he said. “I think that districts can be rewarded if you don’t have a lot of claims so I think that is a big part of it.”
On the other hand, the initial projected increase for health insurance is a whopping 32 percent.
“We are concerned about that for sure,” Stumpf said. “That was the initial proposal from our current health insurance provider, so we are going to meet next week. It has been my experience that they come in with their initial one, but then it goes down. We will just have to see where the final rates are.”
Greenfield will share cost of a speech pathologist with North Greene for the coming school year after their own speech pathologist finally retired.
“Our former speech pathologist was a retired speech pathologist that was able to work for us 100 days a year,” Stumpf said. “She has done that for about the last 10 years. But, after 50 years in education, she finally decided to retire.”
The deal worked out with North Greene is that Greenfield will pay 60 percent of the pathologist’s salary and North Greene 40 percent. They will split their time between the two schools with three days a week at Greenfield and two at North Greene.
Greenfield is coming in a little late in the game, but the district is finally implementing a cell-phone policy that will require students to deposit their cell-phones in a special locker when they get to school. They will remain there until lunch, when students can retrieve them during lunch, but they must be returned after lunch and remain until the end of the school day.
Illinois lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2427, which requires all public-school districts to adopt policies banning the use of personal cell phones and wireless devices (including smartwatches and tablets) during the school day. The statewide mandate applies beginning in the 2027-2028 school year.
“We decided we wanted to go ahead and implement it this year so we can work out any kinks and make adjustments that might be needed,” Stumpf said. “The goal of the policy is to create a phone-free learning environment that supports increased student engagement, improved academic performance, fewer distractions and stronger face-to-face interactions.”
Ironically, North Greene and Carrollton have been implementing this system for the past couple of years already.
“Yeah, we are a little late, but we will start it this fall,” Stumpf said. “Up to this point, the rule was the phones were supposed to be in their book bag or in their locker, but it was very difficult to keep track of and students were still keeping them on their person and it was causing disruptions. So, this way, when they get to school, it has to go in these specific lockers and stay there.”
Stumpf reviewed, with the board, the amended 2025-26 budget, highlighting the changes from the original budget, including a reduction in overall expenditures.
“Our budget numbers are still in deficit spending, but it is about $200,000 less than we were projected to spend,” Stumpf said. “Everyone did a really nice job cutting costs and getting their expenses down. We have a ways to go, but it was better than we expected at the beginning of the year.”
Stumpf said at the beginning of the year, the projection was that the district would be $600,000 in the red.
Following closed session, the board:
■ Accepted the resignation of Assistant Football Coach – Owen Baird.
■ Hired High School Boys Basketball Coach – Scott Plogger.
■ Hired Speech Language Pathologist – Jordyn Goben.
■ Hired District Guidance Counselor – Morgan Coffey.
■ Hired High School Principal – Joe Pembrook.
■ Approved Paid Student Teacher for High School Science in Spring 2027 – Karli Easley.
■ Hired Co-Student Council Sponsors – Amber Winters and Darbey Tepen.
■ Approved Jr. High Softball Volunteer Coaches – Chris Weller and Tim Wright.