In Attendance: Chief Ray Rose, Mundelein Police Department
Representative Kathy Ryg, 59th District
Patti Leppala-Bardell, ISBE/EBD Network
Mary Penich, Lake County Regional Office of Education
Alex Marx, Mundelein Park District
Barbara Daudelin, Mundelein Park District/Round Lake Park
District
Chuck Balling, Gurnee Park District
Mary Otte, Girl Scouts, IL Crossroads Council
Demar Harris, Lake County Workforce
Michelle DiCarlo, Hawthorn Junior High
Jennifer Tempest Bova, Woodland District 50
Anne Buck, Round Lake, District 116
Evelyn Dalenheim Russell, YWCA Lake County
Migdalia Diaz, Omni Youth Services
Pat Garrity, Lake County Health Department
David Husemoller, Lake County Planning,Building & Dev.
Jennifer Adams, Northern IL Food Bank
Liz Nelson, Lake County In Touch
Jim Sipes, Abbott
Wallace Brandies, NICASA
Judy Fried, NICASA
Shana Magidovitch, United Way of Lake County
Loomis Mayfield, Illinois After-school Alliance (phone)
Theresa Loerch, State Representative Kathy Ryg’s office
The next After School Coalition Leadership Team meeting will be held at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, May 9, 2005 at the Mundelein Police Department.
Announcements:
Chief Rose, Mundelein Police Department and Alex Marx, Mundelein Park District announced that the Mundelein After School Coalition sponsored their 2nd community dance, ‘Mardi Gras’ on Friday, April 8th at Carl Sandburg Middle School. It was another huge success with over 400 in attendance. There are already plans in the works for a third dance, “Hawaiian Luau” which will take place outdoors on Friday, July 1st to coincide with Mundelein Days. The Mundelein After School Coalition is also working towards opening a teen center in Mundelein.
State Representative Kathy Ryg announced that her office would be hosting a seminar,
“Shedding Light on Due Process: The Law, Parents and Schools” on Thursday, April 21st
at the Vernon Hills High School. This seminar will discuss the changes in due process laws and will answer questions on its impact on families, educators and students.
Loomis Mayfield, Illinois After-school Alliance called in for the meeting and reported Representative Jim Watson sponsored HR12 that passed the House unanimously on March15, 2005. It establishes a House Task Force to study and report on One-to-One Mentoring Programs. It will hold hearings concerning the best course of action to maximize the potential of at-risk youth and to report its recommendations to the House of Representatives no later than January 1, 2006. The Speaker and the Minority Leader will make appointments of members to this committee. A similar resolution passed the House last year at the close of session but no hearings were held because appointments were not made because of the press of election year business.
If you have anyone in mind to sit on this task force, you should discuss it with that member or you can contact Loomis Mayfield (312-986-9200, lmayfield@icvp.org) for more information. When hearings are scheduled, Mayfield will let us know when and where they will take place in case any coalition members want to testify. If you would like to be directly informed of any hearings to testify, you can contact Rep. Watson’s office directly to his district office, (217) 243-6221 or fax a letter to (217) 245-2071 requesting to be informed of any hearings. His mailing address can be found at http://www.ilga.gov/.
Senator Jacqueline Collins introduced a bill to raise revenue for the Teen REACH after-school program by imposing a 25 cent charge or tax on the sale of all video games in the state. It passed out of the Senate as a “shell bill” on a party line vote on April 15. One Republican, Senator J. Bradley Burzynski, supported it because of his strong support of after-school programs.
A “shell bill” is a bill that does not contain any specific language, and SB 2030 passed in this form because of objections raised by representatives of the software industry to the proposed language establishing the 25 cent charge. Most "shell bills" are passed on party line votes by the majority. It is a way to keep a bill alive and meet the deadlines of when bills have to be passed by one chamber to stay active. This tactic allows the bill to remain alive this session and move over to the House side, where the issue will be worked out if the bill progresses.
Representative Mark Beaubien of Lake County has agreed to co-sponsor it in the House, depending on the final language of the bill because of his strong support for Teen REACH and after-school programs. Currently, it is in the House Rules Committee and must be reported out of there before further action can take place.
Please contact Rep. Beaubien, especially if you are in his district, and thank him for his support for Teen REACH and after-school programs and his involvement in restoring funds to Teen REACH. His office numbers are: Springfield Office, (217) 782-1517 & fax at
(217) 782-7012. District Office numbers are (847) 487-5252 & fax at (847) 487-0956. His mailing address can be found at http://www.ilga.gov/. For more information on this bill, you can contact Loomis Mayfield (312-986-9200, lmayfield@icvp.org).
Restoring Teen REACH cut from Governor’s proposed FY06 budget: As per the action alerts sent out previously, the Governor and all state Senators and Representatives need to hear from their constituents to restore the funds to the Teen REACH budget. It was cut by more than $2.6 million from last year, or over 13.1%. The action alert is available at: http://icvp.org/afterschoolalliance.asp For more information, you can contact Loomis Mayfield (312-986-9200, lmayfield@icvp.org).
Pat Garrity, Lake County Health Department announced The Gearing Up for Teen
Success Coalition in Waukegan plans to promote an awareness campaign to celebrate the
assets of teens and the success of the community in supporting youth development.
Say “Yes” to Youth Success will unite the youth, families, and representatives from various
agencies, community groups, businesses, schools, faith-based organizations, the city, and
the community as a whole in recognizing the achievements of youth. Representatives from
several youth groups are participating in the planning of the campaign.
Elizabeth Nelson, Lake County in Touch reported that beginning June 1st, Highland Park will be 100% smoke-free for all restaurants and places of employment. They will have the best ordinance in the state. The very few exemptions include the tobacco retailer and nursing homes. A group of concerned citizens, the Lake County Health Dept./Community Health Center, American Cancer Society and other state and national agencies lent support to this effort.
Patti Leppala-Bardell, ISBE/EBD Network reported that according to the State Board of Education (ISBE), there are several reasons why the discretionary dollar funded programs have been cut.
1)
Passed last year
P.A. 93-1022
p.14: redirects unused Room and Board funding to districts for reimbursement of
extraordinary expenses.
p.15 (passed by the 90th Gen. Assembly. - P.A. 90-457): caps at 3% per year the
growth of IDEA set-aside funds that are allowed to stay at ISBE. This part of
the law has a much more significant impact on the ability of ISBE to fund
projects than the previous section. It means that while federal law allows ISBE
to keep up to 20% of the IDEA funds received, state law keeps that percent at a
significantly smaller amount (For FY05 that comes to 7.3%, in FY06 it will be
7.2%). This restriction has an ever-increasing impact on ISBE's ability to fund
discretionary projects to support the needs of students with disabilities.
2) The ongoing and increasing financial requirements under the Corey H.
Settlement Agreement. This year, ISBE is required to pay a minimum of $3
million dollars. That money comes from the discretionary fund.
3) For several years, ISBE has had carryover funds from IDEA which they have
chosen to roll into discretionary projects. However, unexpended federal funds
can only be carried over for a limited time or they must be returned. Those
funds have been spent on discretionary projects, and that source of funding is
now gone.
Because of the factors detailed above, ISBE can no longer fund all of the
statewide projects that were previously funded. In addition, they no longer
have the Room & Board dollars available to provide to the Local Area Networks
(LANs) for flex-funds.
The resulting consequences are that approximately 50 programs which provided services and supports across the state for youth with special needs have been cut. In addition, half of the funds received by LANs across Illinois, which were used to supplement wraparound plans for children/youth at risk, and their families, have been pulled by ISBE. DCFS has stated that they will continue to contribute their funding support, but the small amount of funding that was available as flex-funds statewide (I believe it was approx. $1.7 million total) has now been cut in half.
A Glossary of Special Education Acronyms is attached.
Report from Strategic Planning Committee: Judy Fried, NICASA reported that the
By-Laws were revised per the Coalition’s recommendation. There was also discussion of the implementation process of the By-Laws. Mary Penich and Elizabeth Nelson will be putting together a list of nominees or ask a nominee committee to provide names for the May 9th meeting. Once the Lake County After School Coalition is officially organized, it will be able to seek funding.
Report from Special Needs Committee: Patti Leppala-Bardell, ISBE/EBD Network reported that they are still compiling data from the Special Needs conference held in March and hope to have this information available for the next meeting.
Report from Assessment Committee: Barb Daudelin, Mundelein Park District/Round Lake Park District reported they have received a total of 131 assessment surveys from police departments, social services, schools, libraries, villages, townships, park districts and faith based organizations. The committee will be sending another batch of surveys out to increase the numbers. They have a lot of information to compile and are considering their options.
Next Meeting: Chief Bruce Johnson, Round Lake Park/Hainesville Police Department will be presenting “LifeStar Science and Technology at the Crime Scene” at the next After School Coalition Leadership Team meeting to be held on Monday, May 9, 2005 at 8:30 a.m., Mundelein Police Department.