Kaneland school board approves additional hires as influx of remote learners expected back in buildings this fall

Kaneland Community Unit School District No. 302 anticipates having 650 students returning to school this August who haven’t been in school for the past 18 months.

In order to address the social emotional learning needs of hundreds of such students as well as many more, the Board of Education approved the hiring of four behavior facilitators to address the needs of its students during a June 28 meeting.

“It became apparent that those positions that we have talked about and were selectively abandoned at different times for really good reasons at the time, it was more apparent for us to have more dialogue,” Kaneland Superintendent Dr. Todd Leden said. “With our students coming back to school,some for the first time, some coming to a building for the first time, some coming out of hybrid learning, some out of full remote, we felt it was imperative to bring this to the board at this time for these positions to especially support our students coming out of COVID and in general, of course,because we had them on our list before COVID.”

Kaneland’s school board voted 6-1 for the hiring of the four behavior facilitators, two for the elementary schools and one each at Harter Middle School and Kaneland High School.

Board member Ryan Kerry voted against the hiring.

“There is nothing new here, but we’re instituting a new program forever,” Kerry said. “And most of what I hear is COVID and I just can’t get my mind around forever and mostly COVID.”

The board approved the hiring of psychologists, social workers, board certified behavior analysts or learning behavior specialists with behavior intervention licensure.

“Those would be people who would have the credentials and the training and the background and experience to be able to do the kind of things that we’re looking at,” Kaneland Director of Human Resources Dr. Chris Adkins said. “That proven experience in working with students with social emotional learning needs.”

Adkins acknowledged that this need goes beyond what the pandemic has done to children, but well before it. Furthermore, while staff has been recognized for the stellar work it is doing, they may not have the ability to properly address the growing social and emotional needs of the students they are teaching.

“We have teachers who are excellent at what they do and love our students tremendously,” Adkins said. “But they may or may not have the training for specific skill building for various social and emotional needs that are coming up.”

In other action, the board approved the tentative budgets for the district for 2021-2022 as well as for the Fox Valley Career Center for2021-2022.