Knoxville District 202 Board of Education holds two bi-annual townhall meetings to keep stakeholders abreast of what’s going on in the district and hear any comments.
The first of those town halls took place inside Knoxville High School’s auditorium last night.
A small smattering of concerned citizens and parents had few criticisms, even a few compliments.
Superintendent Steve Wilder mostly detailed the schools recent data from last year’s PARCC testing, finances and the HVAC system that’s almost completely installed at Mable Woolsey Elementary.
There was a question on the state Knox-Warren Special Education Co-op after Galesburg withdrawals after this year.
Wilder calmed concerns about major changes.
“Let me be clear about a couple of things, first of all the Knox-Warren Co-op is staying together, ” Wilder told those in attendance. “Really the only single change is that Galesburg is withdrawing from the co-op, so, there are seven school districts in the co-op — there are going to be six. The challenge is that Galesburg is big and has about half of the student’s in the co-op.”
Not only was Galesburg the largest district in the co-op, they’ve been the chief administrative agent.
Wilder explained that the remaining six schools are in the process of forming what’s essentially it’s own school district. This creates a governance over the co-op that is independent of yet works with the six districts.