Illinois funding formula to address emergency closings
The News-Gazette of Urbana reports that Illinois has enacted a law that will guarantee that schools forced to close because of health or safety emergencies, such as a death threat or a tornado, will not lose a portion of their state aid because of that missed day. The law provides that if one school in a district has to close for up to two days because of “a hazardous threat to the health and safety of pupils,” that district can apply to receive state money for those days based on the average attendance rate of the three previous school days. Local schools have faced several threats in the last few years, including phone-message threats at Urbana and Champaign schools in September 2007 and threats of violence like that at Virginia Tech at Mahomet-Seymour High School in April 2007. “In the last couple of those years ... those incidents have grown,” said Ben Schwarm, associate executive director for government relations for the Illinois Association of School Boards, which supported the legislation. He added that, in the weeks and months after the massacre at Virginia Tech, “there seemed to be a rash” of threatening incidents at schools. Mr. Schwarm also said that while incidents forcing a district staff to close a single school didn't happen often, when they did, the lessened state aid “would be a huge loss to the school district through no fault of their own.” He noted the district still would have to pay school staff for the day.
Source: Urbana News-Gazette, 8/18/08, By Amy F. Reiter