State withholds grants, DuPage education czar cuts 14 jobs
Instead of making a planned budget presentation to the DuPage County Board Tuesday, Regional Office of Education Superintendent Darlene Ruscitti was in Springfield lobbying for missing state grant funds that forced her to cut 14 jobs.
"We had some really tough choices to make," Ruscitti said. "We gave them unpaid leaves until we see what happens with this, but I'm being told the state can't guarantee we'll get the money."
The state is withholding roughly $700,000 in grants that help pay for these posts, she said.
Ruscitti notified the 14 workers last week. Gone are two technology positions, an English language learning coordinator, a reading assessment coordinator, a career-readiness coordinator, the district's homeless family liaison, four early childhood educators and four posts at the alternative school in Addison.
"I didn't cut teachers at the (alternative) school," she said. "But I will open my doors in August with roughly 70 kids to start, and God knows what will happen in the interim and I only have 15 percent of my budget for that school."
The alternative school allows troubled children who were kicked out of other schools for disciplinary reasons to continue their education. The principal, two support staff members and a dean were placed on leave, Ruscitti said.
Ruscitti said the early childhood educators deal with low-income families to teach new parents how to better support their child's educational needs.
"It's tragic," said state Sen. Randy Hultgren, a Wheaton Republican. "There's been an attempt to say that the dysfunction in Springfield doesn't really impact people, but that's clearly not the case. People's lives are being impacted because of how bad things are in Springfield."
Ruscitti said the cuts didn't just affect at-risk students.
"We were told each regional office was funded for gifted education training, and we would love to do this training over the summer because it's very intensive," she said. "But since we're not receiving the money now, if we do get it we'll have to pull teachers out of classrooms for eight days."
The workers' last day was July 6.