A new school year means new programs, support and initiatives for students, faculty and staff in the Macomb Community Unit School District No. 185 (MCUSD 185).
According to Superintendent Mark Twomey, the big push this academic year will be the future Career Technical Education Center. The Macomb School Board has given the green light for the district to move forward on finding the funding and space to build a new career tech center on Macomb High School’s campus.
“We are ready. We’ve wanted this for some time, and now we have to figure out if we’re going to unite with others on this single purpose, or if we have enough to do this on our own,” Twomey explained. “We’re meeting with the City of Macomb and Spoon River College to discuss this further so we can expand upon some of our current courses, such as automotive and CNA, while adding more career technical programs, to make this a reality. We’re really looking to our own community to determine the needs.
“We’re really going to hit this hard this year,” he added. “At the July Board meeting, I talked about this and we’ve received the directive from the Board to keep moving forward.”
The district expects to serve a little more than 2,000 students this year, a slight increase over 2024-2025, and has close to 400 employees across its five Macomb schools, which includes nearly 50 new employees thanks to the district taking over its own bus services.
Chief Academic Officer/Assistant Superintendent Margie Rhoades shared that she’s recently coming out of the new teacher’s academy, which has been renamed Bomber Launch. The group had a two-day orientation to get them acclimated with the community, the schools and one another. Through the program, the district’s 20 new teachers – some coming in as first-year teachers, while others are seasoned educators – are paired with a mentor teacher for two years. One of the district’s new teachers has arrived in Macomb from the Philippines as part of an exchange program, which was initiated by former Macomb High School Principal Scott Sullivan. As part of the Bomber Launch program, the teachers and their mentors meet monthly to go over best practices, take part in team-building and other activities and discussions, she added.
“This is a way for our new teachers to feel welcomed and supported as they begin their career in our district,” Rhoades added. “I came out of these two days with so much excitement and anticipation for the new year. There’s a lot of good collaboration ahead.”
Besides the new teachers joining the district, there are a few new policies that are going into effect as of day one, including a new “no cell phone” policy at Macomb High, along with no hats, hoodies or ear buds. Twomey and Rhoades both noted they expect these policies to help eliminate distractions and allow for a greater rapport between school staff and peers.
“Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve received nothing but positive comments from parents, especially about the new cell phone policy,” Twomey shared.
“Parents understand as they see the distraction at home because of cell phones. Not only that, bullying, especially cyber-bullying, is a big concern, and by requiring cell phones to be off and put away, this helps mitigate some of those concerns.
“It’s a really good thing. We’ve had this in practice in our kindergarten through eighth grades, so those incoming freshmen are already used to this policy,” he noted. “If there are emergency situations, we have a mass notification system in place to contact parents and guardians, and I’d ask for their patience. Their student will be able to get in touch with them; however, we will ensure safety first for our students and staff at all times.”
On the academic side of the house, the district has adopted a new math curriculum, which will be used for grades kindergarten through eighth for consistency and skill-building, according to Rhoades. When adopting a new curriculum, a districtwide teacher committee reviews the programs and helps choose the program or curriculum that best meets the needs of students in the district’s schools.
“By utilizing the same program from the first year through the eighth-grade year, students follow a pattern. It builds upon their skills each year, and they almost know what to expect,” Rhoades pointed out. “Vertical articulation through a consistent curriculum helps not only with our teachers’ time management because much of the organization is done for them, it builds skills for the next steps for the students.”
For student support, the district takes part in the Regional Office of Education #26’s LEAP (LEAP (Leading, Educating and Partnering in Schools) Program for grades four-12, which allows student advocates to meet with students and staff to help foster positive relationships and engagement between students/families and the school. The advocates, two in the Middle School and two in the high school, set up success plans with students and families for emotional, behavioral and/or academic struggles and act as a liaison between the families and the schools to help students be successful. The district also uses a school-based MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Support) team in which student reading/ math data is analyzed to determine which students need academic interventions and track student progress as a result of those interventions.
“If students aren’t performing at their grade level, the MTSS gives them the boost they need,” Rhoades stated. “It props them up and gets them where they need to be, and this can help them as they move from building to building. It’s really a consistent system that’s in place to help our students throughout their academic career. Another aspect of the MTSS is to ensure that classroom learning is taking place in a consistent fashion that not only benefits the entire class, but the teacher as well as it ensures that the class is performing at the level it needs to be.”
Budgetwise, the district is going into the new school year in what Twomey calls, “a planned deficit.” Teachers, along with the new union representing support staff, were provided with, what the superintendent said is “a really good contract,” so the district knew there would be a slight impact to the budget for a few years. “The Board made a choice to give a good contract to our employees, but we had some good padding going into that.
While the planned deficit is there, it’s well worth it for our employees to be happy with their working environment, salaries and more,” he added. “Within a few years, our fund balances will level out; however, they will still be strong.”
“The district is poised for really awesome things, and our teacher leaders are going to take us places we’ve never been before,” Twomey said. “This year’s slogan is ‘The Year of the Teacher’ and I know our educators and staff will create impactful solutions for the future.”
