St. Joseph #169 attends conference ahead of Superintendent search, Heritage sends delegate to assembly

By Isabella Zarate

Time and space to gather for collaboration have been difficult to find as the world continues to grapple with the spread of COVID-19. 

Alongside almost every other event, the annual IASB (Illinois Association of School Boards) conference was canceled in 2020. Billed as a time when school leaders across the state of Illinois gather to share how they face issues that impact students, Association members from across the state gathered in 2021 for a weekend in Chicago before Thanksgiving to attend workshops, hear from guest speakers, vote on policy changes, and even meet with vendors.

Of the six school districts the Mahomet Daily and SJO Daily cover, three districts had school board members and district administrative staff attend: Mahomet-Seymour, Heritage, and St. Joseph #169. 

With the retirement of Superintendent Todd Pence at the end of the 2021-2022 school year, the St. Joseph School Board, including President Lois Hewerdine, Vice President Jeff Hoveln, Member Jennifer Carlson, Member Brooks Bennett-Miller, Member Scott Perkins, Superintendent Todd Pence, and Principal Michelle Wagner, attended the IASB conference to better understand the process of hiring a new superintendent. 

According to a FOIA request response, Mahomet-Seymour’s time at the conference, for the most part, was spent talking to vendors. In response to the request for attendees’ workshop choices, it appears that only board member Justin Lamb attended a workshop titled “Setting District Goals and Direction.”

According to the itinerary provided by the district, Mahomet-Seymour’s Director of Student Support Services Christine Northrup, Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent Dawn Quinley, Chief School Business Official Heather Smith, Superintendent Lindsey Hall, Assistant Superintendent Nicole Rummel, and board members Justin Lamb, Max McComb and Sunny McMurry spent Nov. 18, 19 and 20 with vendors the district often contracts.

Bushue Human Resources took the group for cocktails at the Billy Goat Tavern before they had dinner with Ameresco at Fogo De Chao on the 18th. Emails between Hall Mahomet-Seymour Support Services Teacher Rhonda Ehrecke showed that the reservation was made for 20 people. Many of the attendees’ spouses also came along on the trip. 

Friday kicked off with refreshments with Ameresco at the Living Room Lounge followed by cocktails and hors d’ oeuvres with VEREGY (formerly CTS Group), BLDD at the Crystal Ballroom, and CORE in the Ogden Room— all at the Hyatt Regency where the Mahomet-Seymour attendees stayed. Franczek also provided cocktails & dinner with heavy hors d’ oeuvres at the Radisson Blue Aqua Hotel as did Stifel at Venue Six10.

On Saturday, Unland Insurance & Benefits along with Miller, Hall & Triggs hosted a reception at the Swissotel Eleve Ballroom before the group met with BLDD Architects at Shaw’s Crab House. 

There are also emails dated late October between Hall and Damien Schlitt from BLDD Architects confirming a vendor Dinner at Shaw’s Crab House. Based off menus sent via email, the group is expected to have had a five-course meal.

BLDD Architects have been named the Mahomet-Seymour School District’s Architect of Record for several years, and are currently facilitating the Bulldog Blueprint initiative. 

Though exact prices and receipts were not given for each vendor meal, based on research and menus from Shaw’s Crab House the dinner could have totaled $55-$100 per person.

Mahomet-Seymour board policy has a gift ban written into their policy: the ban states that board members and employees are not to receive food or refreshments from a “prohibited source” that exceeds more than $75.00.

Board Policy 2:105 Ethics and Gift Ban
“Food or refreshments not exceeding $75 per person in value on a single calendar day; provided that the food or refreshments are: (a) consumed on the premises from which they were purchased or prepared; or (b) catered. “Catered” means food or refreshments that are purchased ready to consume which are delivered by any means.”

Heritage representatives, Superintendent Tom Davis and board members Andrew Lubben, Courtney Montgomery, Curt Elmore, Darrin Tate, John Lannon, Zach Wells, and Kimberly Keniley-Ashbrook “did not do any paid or invitation meal outings with any vendors,” Davis shared. They did meet with Veregy (formerly CTS) the district’s performance contractor. The meeting, which took place in a hospitality room, was informal and came at no cost to the district.

Pence said St. Joseph did not have any scheduled vendor meetings.

While vendors picked up the tab for meetings, the conference did come at a cost to the taxpayer.

The cost to register for the conference via “Early Bird registration” was $499.00 per person plus an additional $200.00 non-refundable housing deposit. This price was the same for all attendees. 

St. Joseph’s only costs to the district were conference fees, hotel costs, and mileage. And according to Superintendent Todd Pence, their total for the event was $9,238.

As for Heritage their grand total conference and housing deposit fees falls right at $5,033.00. That does include an extra $140.00 for a specific workshop called “Advocacy in Action,” which Kimberly Keniley-Ashbrook attended.

Mahomet-Seymour posted the highest ticket of the three local school districts in attendance. Receipts from the FOIA response show that taxpayers were on the line for $11,554.53 over the three-day weekend. 

The district paid the same fees and housing deposits with that total being $5,899.76 – that does include a $140.00 workshop charge. 

According to invoices, M-S cost the district another $4,457.36 for their stay at the Hyatt Regency, that is not including the $200 per person room deposit.

Attendees from St. Joseph filed a mileage reimbursement under their board costs, though no dollar amount was given in the response to the question. 

Heritage attendees were more conservative as they took the train up. Due to a schedule conflict, Superintendent Tom Davis had to drive up, thus he submitted a parking reimbursement for $100.00.

Mahomet-Seymour attendees requested reimbursement for parking and mileage. According to the M-S employee reimbursement form, .56 cents is allowed per mile traveled. Three employees submitted a total of $463.66 in mileage reimbursement fees. Additionally, they filed receipts and requested reimbursement for a total of $209.50 in parking. In total, the Mahomet-Seymour parking and transportation for the event cost the district a total of $673.16.

For meals St. Joseph “board members agreed not to submit bills for personal meals/expenses,” according to board president Lois Hewerdine. Heritage took a similar approach.

“Members and I paid for ourselves at local restaurants near to that site,” he said. 

Mahomet-Seymour only had two people send in reimbursement for meals. Lindsey Hall sent in $116.32 for meals and Dawn Quinley submitted $30.82 for a total of $147.14 of meal reimbursements. There was also an unitemized receipt for 101.60 from the Silver Spoon Thai Restaurant totaling $84.60 and a $17 tip. The top of the receipt reads “dinner for 3 @$15 each.”

Each year the Delegate Assembly runs in conjunction with the annual conference. This year, representatives from IASB member school boards considered a total of 23 resolutions. The delegate votes establish IASB’s positions on legislation and related matters of public policy and serve as the Association’s Annual Business Meeting. 

According to the IASB website, proposed resolutions approved by the membership were indigenous people curriculum inclusion, cannabis sales tax revenues for public schools, timing of the reorganization of the board of education after an election, virtual open board of education meetings, expansion of broadband access, federal funding for landscaping, and pre-service teacher education in literacy. 

For the third time, member boards of education voted against a proposed resolution that would call for IASB to support legislation that would allow school districts to set school safety and student protection policies that would allow trained, armed schoolteachers and staff. The member boards voted against the resolution 202-181.  

Heritage was the only school to send a delegate, Zach Wells, to cast a vote.