Former District 158 chief aims to tackle school safety, teacher shortage, pension reform
School safety, education funding and a teachers shortage are some of the issues John Burkey hopes to address in leading the group representing the largest K-12 school districts statewide.
Burkey, former superintendent of Huntley Community School District 158, is the executive director of the Large Unit District Association.
Created in 1976 by a group of superintendents, LUDA provides networking, professional development and advocacy for 53 large unit school districts with more than 3,500 students. It hosts three yearly conferences for superintendents and administrators to collaborate and share ideas.
The group's advocacy work in Springfield has influenced legislation affecting schools, such as the state's adoption of an evidence-based funding formula and changes to student disciplinary policies, said Burkey, who was District 158's superintendent 12 years.
Member districts include Barrington 220, Batavia 101, Burlington 301, Algonquin 300, Elgin Area U-46, Elmhurst 205, Geneva 304, District 158, Indian Prairie 204, Kaneland 302, Lake Zurich 95, Naperville 203, Round Lake Area 116, St. Charles 303, West Aurora 129 and Wheaton-Warrenville 200.
With recent school shootings stoking a national conversation about gun control, security remains a huge issue.
Burkey expects to be part of any discussion whether teachers should be armed - an idea floated by President Donald Trump after the Feb. 14 Parkland, Florida, school shooting in which 14 students and three adults were killed.
The statewide teacher shortage and talk of shifting pension costs onto school districts also are hot topics.
Licensing laws need to be relaxed to make it easier for out-of-state teachers to get certified here, Burkey said.
"We want teachers to be prepared, but (certification) has become too cumbersome and (is) keeping people from coming to Illinois," Burkey said. "The largest export in Illinois is college freshmen. We have more and more high school kids leaving Illinois to go to college out of state. That's a terrible brain drain (and) not being able to come back here to teach, Illinois is really losing out."
State education officials this year are studying teacher shortage and retention, credentialing and diversity of the teaching force.
"We want to have the best qualified people in schools but we need to be able to find them," Burkey said.
With Illinois' financial woes, pension reform needs to happen, but shifting the burden to schools is not the solution, Burkey added.
"The pension shift is a terrible idea ... the benefits given under the pension were created by the state. School districts have no say in that. To push the pension cost onto districts does nothing but shift the problem. Districts are going to have to, in a draconian way, cut services or they are going to have to raise property taxes."
Burkey lives in Huntley and has a fifth-grader and high school freshman attending District 158 schools.