A press release from Regional Superintendent of Education Leslie Schermerhorn:
Leslie Schermerhorn Announces Candidacy for Re-election as McHenry County Regional Superintendent of Schools
Leslie Schemerhorn
Leslie Schermerhorn, current McHenry County Regional Superintendent of Schools, will be filing to be on the primary Republican ballot for March 18, 2014.
Due to the realignment [merger] of some Regional Offices, the legislature has extended the time when candidates for Regional Superintendent may file to December 16, 2013 through December 23, 2013. McHenry County Regional Office was not affected by the realignment.
Ms. Schermerhorn was first appointed to the Regional Superintendent position in May of 2012 and elected in the General Election in November 2013.
The position has an extensive list of qulifications for the office.
Ms. Schermerhorn has 7 years of classroom teaching experience, 5 years as a school administrator, a masters degree in education, and a license in educational administration.
Leslie Schermerhorn is also an attorney admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1985.
Leslie Schermerhorn is running for re-election as she “wants to continue the momentum and work she has begun in the office since her arrival. In the past year and a half, the office has applied for and been awarded grants for Drug Free Communities ($625,000), high school credit recovery at several locations throughout the county, principal and teacher evaluation training for school administrators and teacher leaders.
Truancy enforcement throughout the county has gone up by 100% with many more home and school visits being done and more severe truancy cases going to juvenile court.
I have been working with McHenry County College on career and college pathways so McHenry County high school students can plan the classes and experiences they need in order to achieve post high school goals.
My passion is to ensure all students in McHenry County are safe, attending school regularly and getting the education necessary to succeed beyond high school; whether in a career or in college.”
I have had only one experience with this one.
She is very nice and tells you what you want to hear, a true phony.
Lost my Vote!
Fukoku, I do not agree with you on many things, but this one I do.
This ROE office survived the State cut.
She seems to be doing the job competently.
How about working with local schools and MCC and parents to increase awareness and reduce kids requiring
remedial level classes in college.
Not the assigned duty of the ROE but a big problem.
Need more awareness in kids that are not tracking to be college ready amongst parents.
The schools know many of these kids are tracking behind in math in elementary and as long as the kids were “meeting expectations” the schools were not and are not doing much about bringing the issue to parents.
Mainly because too many in the system are more concerned about their image than actually reducing the percentage of kids that require remedial level classes in college.
When is the last time you saw a Superintendent Goal of reducing the percentage of kids that require remedial level classes in college?
Absolutely one office we could do without.
Where is Jack Franks on this one?
Where is Mike Tryon?
Where is Pam Althoff?
Where is Karen McConnaughay?
Where is Wheeler and McSweeney on this?
What a waste of taxpayer dollars!!!
Useless job and would not vote for her in a million years.
Knowledge – she is the daughter of a retired McHenry county judge.
Leslie doesn’t return phone calls and also doesn’t return e-mails.
She is a horrible to work with.
Jgkm6 – you couldn’t be more right about it being a useless job.
It costs $13,000 per student per year to “educate” the children in our school district and it’s such a waste!
Have you ever heard the kids from the school system talk?
Most of them sound dumb and cannot even formulate a conceptual thought.
I find it a shame that Leslie will get this position without us getting a choice of someone else – someone who’s not wasting our tax dollars with this waste of a school system.
The school system is out of control and it all starts at the top with this wasteful position.
Would really like to see the resume.
That $13,000 probably doesn’t include the ROE costs and does not include the State pension costs.
Of all the things to worry about in education, spending time on McHenry County ROE consolidation or elimination, and the quality of the Schermerhorns, has to be near the bottom of the barrel.
Haven’t heard many complaints about either Schermerhorn over the years.
The State and the ISBE just went through ROE consolidation and McHenry County was spared.
Not sure how hard they work or how effective they are, but the ROE’s perform several beneficial functions, many of which the public typically doesn’t think that much about.
Teachers must be certified and recertified.
Track truants (keep kids on track to graduate and off the street).
Help those kids who didn’t graduate on time, to graduate (credit recovery).
So if you eliminate all ROE’s the school districts must absorb those functions.
In some cases that’s not such a big deal, in other cases it is.
Typically smaller school districts rely on ROE’s more heavily than larger school districts.
What about consolidating the smaller school districts?
Well then you have to consider quite a few factors including:
1. The state law which says when school districts are consolidated, the teacher salary schedule of the higher paid school district must be used.
2. Larger school districts mean more powerful teacher unions.
3. Larger school districts mean more bureaucracy and politics.
In terms of the overall education problem in Illinois and the overall amount of money being spent, ROE reform is pretty far down on the totem pole.
Here are some larger priorities.
The pension mess is number one and will remain number one even if the recently passed law survives Supreme Court Challenges 100%.
Reduce the number of kids needing remedial level classes in college.
Local school district collective bargaining agreements too heavily skewed to benefit teachers at expense of children and taxpayers.
What are some reform ideas?
Competition and choice of where public education tax dollars can be spent by parents.
Get the money out of the hands of politicians and into the hands of parents.
National School Choice Week.
January 26 – February 1, 2014.
http://schoolchoiceweek.com
I would like to see proven successful business people running education.
Heck. one of them should be running the White House.
Community organizers and socialists are not really interested in this country surviving let alone thriving.
And they like to do things their way ON OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.
Those in-house leaders in education are so attached to education they can’t see thru their self-created and self-perpetuated self-interested fog.
Gosh forbid they would have to live like the rest of us who are not “never-ending learners trying to grow their world bigger”.
As more technology comes along, they STILL add more employees and pensions.
Tossing money at this for decades has not helped as is shown by our statistics versus those of other countries that aren’t considered 3rd World.
The stats were just updated recently.
Why are we below so many?
Maybe if we tried doing things their way we’d go up the ladder instead of being 20 something on the lists.
We have built a house of cards that will surely collapse if we continue to allow our elected officials be bought by donations from unions of all kinds.
Detroit just blew up financially.
Chicago is in debt up to its old gray hairs. S
o-called leaders from Illinois, California, and New York are running the country even though they can’s keep their own states out of deep debt.
Our kids deserve better and it’s time to do away with the “we hire the best and the brightest” nonsense we keep getting fed by school boards and unions.
Is anyone aware of an Island for the OTHER teachers?
Those who should NOT be allowed to teach and shouldn’t stay on the payrolls.
Strikes should be forbidden.
triking is a form of bribery and holds our kids hostage.
There’s a lot to be corrected because it’s already been “fixed” to lose.
There was some discussion above of eliminating the McHenry County ROE.
Well that hasn’t happened but here’s some more detail on the ROE Consolidation which is occurring.
The ROE’s are being consolidated from 49 regions to 39 regions.
The shuffling has been completed on paper.
The consolidation will take effect July 1, 2015, which is FY 2016.
So now there will be 10 less ROE Superintendents.
SB2706 required the consolidation of ROE’s in areas with less than 61,000 inhabitants.
Read all about it here.
You’ll see in the link there are 13 new regions.
That’s because some existing regions were reshuffled.
The net result is 10 less regions.
You’ll also see in the link mention of 35 regions.
With the three suburban Cook County offices and the City of Chicago there are 39.
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/regionaloffices/html/consolidation.htm
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/%5C%5C/regionaloffices/Default.htm
If anyone wants to see Leslie Schermerhorn’s resume, it is public information and accessible by googling her name.
There you can find her resume as well as her grades in law school.
She seems remarkably qualified for this position.
Not only that, but she has raised more money for educational use in our county than any of her predecessors (through grant application).
You who want to tear her down should put themselves up to do the job instead.
Why not publish your resume and let us decide for ourselves?
A Lawyer, former teacher, former school administrator in Chicago Public Schools and someone who was born and bread in McHenry County?
Do you really think she could possibly NOT be qualified?
Those of you who believe that the job should be eliminated should come up with ways to delegate her duties to our local schools.
Keeping our teachers certified and licensed, ensuring our schools are in compliance with health and safety regulations, keeping truants in school and following up with teachers and parents of those truants to be certain that all students are receiving a quality public education.
All for $105,000K a year? Seems like a bargain.
I am certain that she would be aid much, much more were she to go back to school administration or back into the private sector.
It’s easy to criticize. I
t is those who create alternative paths or dutifully execute their job at hand that make a difference.