Kaneland to add 15 staff members for next year

Kaneland plans to add 15 positions to its staff next year to deal with growing enrollment.

Although new housing has slowed, every new grade that comes into the district is larger than the one graduating, said Jeff Schuler, district assistant superintendent for human resources.

"Our enrollment across the board continues to go up," he said.

Recently the Kaneland school board approved the hiring of 12 classroom teachers, two teachers for special education and speech, and one administrator for next school year.

The cost to the district is estimated at $854,500.

Included in that number are additional responsibilities for current staff members totaling $48,000, mostly for the technology department, including a full-time Webmaster.

Five of the new classroom teachers and one special education teacher will be at the middle school, which has the largest class sizes and is having difficulties sharing teachers across grades while being in two buildings, Schuler said.

The high school will get four new classroom teachers, while Blackberry, Shields and McDole elementary schools will each get one.

The $60,000 administrative spot is for a curriculum and assessment coordinator, who will process the district's in-house standardized testing data.

In previous years, extra teachers were hired at the last minute, but Schuler said that likely wouldn't be necessary because the enrollment this year is more predictable.

Last fall, the district hired 11 new employees at a cost of about $550,000.