Board postpones vote on closing school in southwestern Illinois district
The Bond County CUSD 2 school board has postponed a vote about closing one of its schools.
The board had planned to vote Wednesday night on whether or not to close Sorento School. Superintendent Wes Olson decided to cancel a scheduled public hearing and postpone the vote after he and other board members “received numerous questions and requests for information,” the superintendent wrote in a news release.
“The Board has every intent to ensure the process of considering the closure of the Sorento school building is transparent; stakeholders are provided all necessary information; and questions about the plan moving forward ... are answered,” Olson wrote.
The board will schedule additional public hearings in the future, the news release stated, though it did not say when they would take place.
Parents, students and residents complained the proposal had been kept hidden from the community of fewer than 500 people, and that the district’s superintendent “buried” notice of public hearings on the subject.
Melissa Goymerac, a parent of three children who attend Sorento School, said she was disappointed the board canceled the hearings because parents and students were prepared to express their opinions and ask questions. But she said she’ll use the extra time to her advantage.
“Every day you’re not closing our school is another day to fight it. They have not seen the last of us,” she said.
Conversations about closing Sorento School — one of three in the district — began in late 2019. The school board was looking for ways to distribute class sizes between the other two schools in Greenville and Pocahontas.
While enrollment across the entire district has shrunk, the schools in Pocahontas and Sorento saw the biggest decreases. Between September and December 2019, the board heard public comments about the plan, but it wasn’t until this December that the board took substantive action toward actually closing the school.
Olson said the district met all legal requirements for holding hearings and notifying the public.
