By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – District 87 Superintendent Barry Reilly said Illinois has too many school districts, but he has no desire to resurrect talks of merging with Unit 5.
Reilly told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin such a school district would become one of the biggest in the state, approaching 20,000 students.
PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Reilly on WJBC.
“Go find (a large district) that’s knocking it out of the park doing well,” Reilly said. “Look across this state you’ve got Decatur, Springfield, Rockford, Peoria, Chicago.
“You can rattle off all these school districts that are very, very large. They all have major challenges that extend well beyond the challenges of Unit 5 and District 87.”
The Illinois State Board of Education reports more than 850 school districts in the state, nearly half of them are elementary school districts.
He said even if the state were to incentivize school mergers, it’s still a tough sell.
“The emotion of closing a school, let alone a district, is very strong,” Reilly said. “It gives the community a sense they’ve lost something or they’ve lost a sense of their community.”
Consolidation comes up every decade or so in Unit 5 and District. Voters rejected the idea in 1996.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
