The Rochelle Elementary School Board heard an update Tuesday, Oct. 14, from HUB Program Director Yazmin Nambo, who said the district will be applying for new HUB Program funding in coming weeks.

After its grant cycle ended in the summer of 2025, the district is now locally funding its HUB Program this semester through Dec. 12.

Programming is running in a more limited fashion this semester. The HUB Program is not offering a morning option, and some of its previous enrichment opportunities are not available. Students are still benefiting from the after-school program, daily academic support, snacks, and door-to-door transportation as needed.

The grant-funded HUB Program is specifically targeted to support the district’s K-8 at-risk youths and has used a before and after-school model plus summer school. It provides educational activities for children and experiences such as field trips and members of the community coming in to do demonstrations for the students. The HUB Program recently finished its third year of a three-year grant cycle following winning two five-year grant cycles for a total of 13 years.

A grant that could fund the HUB Program in the future was recently made available to schools and Nambo said the deadline to apply is Nov. 24. The district previously was without a timeline on a grant application.

“It’s big news,” Superintendent Jason Harper said. “Ms. Nambo will be heading up a team that we previously had in place to submit that application. Nothing is guaranteed. There will be a webinar to learn more information about what the grant looks like.”

Pending a new grant, the district has no current plans for the HUB Program after this semester and has communicated that change to parents so they can make other arrangements.

The HUB Program currently has 135 students enrolled in it, about 100 less than last year due to scaling back. Fifth graders in the program are attending it at Rochelle Middle School instead of Central Elementary School to get them prepared for their entry to sixth grade.

The program is currently relying more on community organizations for enrichment programming due to less funding, Nambo said.

“We went to Rochelle Township High School to watch their play and everyone enjoyed that,” Nambo said. “Students in a future teacher program have been coming over to work with the kids. Our fourth graders have been excited to learn about biodomes. And our bus drivers will be coming over soon to do an activity with students. Our teachers have been super enthusiastic and keeping a positive attitude and making sure all of the kids are having fun and still enjoying it even though we don’t have all the things we’d usually have.”

Buses

Harper discussed ongoing work in both districts to establish a student and bus tracking system for students and families that utilize the shared district transportation department.

Students would scan tags when getting onto and off of buses and parents and the district would be able to track where buses are and what students are on them. Parents would be able to see when their students are scheduled to arrive at home and school and get an alert when they get on and off the bus.

The program would take 9-12 months to implement, Harper said.

“This system doesn’t remove human error,” Harper said. “Parents still have to report information to us and that has to get into the system. Kids may forget to tag on or tag off the bus. There is an alert system for when students may forget to get off and the bus driver would handle that.”

The board will consider the tracking system for approval at a future meeting.

Enrollment

Harper provided a yearly update on enrollment to the board on Tuesday. The district has 1,435 students from kindergarten through eighth grade, up five from last year. Last year the district saw an increase of 18 students.

“While we’re not seeing a lot of growth, we’re not having a year where it’s going down,” Harper said. “The best term to give this is a continuing plateau.”

In recent years, the district and community have had concerns of declining enrollment. May Elementary School was closed by the board ahead of the 2021 school year due to declining enrollment and the district’s new attendance center model before being reopened this fall as a preschool.

The elementary district has an average of 160 students per grade, with exactly 160 kids in its kindergarten this year; 56% of those kindergarteners are in the dual language program.

Harper said the district has been working to balance the needs of dual language versus monolingual students, and a current high staff-to-student ratio currently exists in fourth grade monolingual. A job is currently posted to help with that need.

Foundation

The board heard an update on the David Crawford Foundation, which supports elementary district programming with grants. Todd Prusator, foundation board president, said the foundation is in its 31st year and is in “good financial standing.”

This past year, the foundation allocated $8,300 for 16 grants for teachers to do more in classrooms. Prusator said the foundation has seen low turnout at recent spaghetti dinner fundraisers and is looking at other options for fundraising, but wants to continue to have a family aspect to fundraising. The foundation saw $3,000 donated by community organizations last year.

“We will continue to support the elementary district with grants,” Prusator said. “We also have enough funds that if there’s anything else the district needs that’s above and beyond its current budget, we can help out.”

The board unanimously approved the appointments of Kevin Zilm, Donna Drought and Holly Duthie to the Crawford Foundation Board for new two-year terms.

Levy

The board heard an update on its finances and planned tax levy from business office employees Kevin Dale and Matt Zilm. The district plans to increase its tax levy from last year by 4.7%, which will not require a truth in taxation hearing due to being below 5%. The district will receive about $500,000 more than last year to “keep up with inflation and increased costs,” Dale said. The levy will be up for approval next month.

Personnel

The board unanimously approved personnel changes, included the certified employment of Ireland Bradfield (long-term sub starting January 2026), the support staff resignations of Liza Lantz (paraprofessional, Lincoln Elementary School) and Jose Vicente (bilingual paraprofessional, RMS) and the support staff employment of Epifanio Belmonte (maintenance, Central), Alexis Czaplinski (paraprofessional, Central), Michael Dalen (maintenance, Central), Rosa Fonseca (paraprofessional, Lincoln), Tania Guzman (maintenance, May), Hailey Mallette (Paraprofessional, Lincoln), Kaitlin Miller (paraprofessional, RMS) and Jennifer Monroy, bilingual paraprofessional (RMS).