Additional Discussions Safety/ Security, Mental Health, Transportation & More
At Monday’s monthly meeting of the Macomb Community Unit School District (MCUSD) No. 185, Superintendent Mark Twomey told the Board that due to the cost of moving an Ameren substation on the Macomb High School grounds to accommodate building the Career Technical Education (CTE) at MHS that the CTE will be located at Spoon River College. See separate story for full details.
The Board reviewed the district’s amended 2025-2026 budget, which is on file for inspection at the Board of Education Office, Macomb High School, Edison Elementary School, Lincoln Elementary School, MacArthur Early Childhood Center, and the Macomb Public Library. A public hearing will be held at 7 p.m., June 15 at the C.T. Vivian Library. A public hearing will also be held at the same time for the repaving of the MHS tennis courts.
In other business, the Board approved a health insurance package for the district, as well as premiums for district employees. The complete meeting packet can be found at macomb185. org/73/Board-of-Education.
The Board discussed adding a student representative to the Board; moving the monthly Board meetings from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. beginning July 1; and talked about options for enhancing safety in school buildings (e.g., metal detectors and other measures). The Board is still planning on touring other schools with metal detectors in place, and having a school safety expert address the Board to go over options. In addition, Assistant Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer Marjorie Rhoades presented a year-end data review based on the State of Illinois Report Card, which can be found at illinoisreportcard.com.
Recognitions & Discussion Items Students of the Month
Darah McFadden, daughter of Sandra McFadden and Jessica Mason, was selected as the April Senior of the Month. McFadden participates in music, theater and speech, and she is in the MHS Choir, Bomber Bellas and Madrigals, is involved in theater productions both on and off the stage, is president of the MHS Thespian Troupe and is on the speech team.She is a part of the Macomb Youth Leadership Organization, a member of the Spanish Club and the Ecology Club (President), secretary of National Honor Society, and serves as Rotary Correspondent of Interact Club.
Griffin Schauble, daughter of Angie and Scott Schauble, was selected as the May Senior of the Month. Schauble is a member of Ecology Club, Math Team, Interact Club, MYLO, Spanish Club, Speech Team, Thespians, Choir and Art Club. She is a member of National Honor Society, is an inducted thespian, was invited to and participated in the Honors Choir at All-State.She is an Illinois State Scholar, and received the DAR Good Citizen Award.
Safety & Security
While there was no formal discussion on safety and security, Twomey shared that he will have a recommendation to the Board at the June meeting for measures that will need to be put into place for the 2026-2027 school year to be compliant with the Illinois legislation related to Alyssa’s Law.
Alyssa’s Law, a state-by-state life-saving safety legislation, mandates or strongly encourages public K-12 schools to install silent panic alarms/mobile panic alert systems directly linked to local law enforcement. Named in honor of Alyssa Alhadeff, a victim of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, it aims to eliminate emergency routing delays and drastically reduce police response times.
“School employees will be able to initiate a lockdown if something occurs,” Twomey told the media following the meeting. “We are looking at a few different systems, including a badge/lanyard system; however, the Illinois legislation is a little more flexible in that mobile phones may also be used and that seems to be the most viable option. I’ll bring a recommendation forward to the Board at their June meeting.”
School-Based Mental Health Services/ALOP At last month’s Board meeting, Twomey shared that the district has the opportunity to add two schoolbased therapists for the 2026-2027 year through a free school mental health program offered by Cornerstone of Quincy. The organization is funded through Medicaid and insurance services, and will provide two licensed therapists to serve close to three percent of the district’s students who are identified as needing mental health assistance.
The sole responsibility for the district will be to have a designated office space for the therapists, as well as space within each school building for their sessions with students. A unique twist to Macomb’s program is that the district will provide transportation for students to continue their therapy session during the summer months.
Two therapists – a master’s level counselor and bachelor’s level counselor – will be on site beginning with the 2026-2027 school year to provide counseling services to 58 students in the district on a weekly and biweekly basis.
“So many of our families have been on waiting lists for mental health services for months, and now we’ll be able to provide that service right here at school for them,” Twomey said.
While the Board approved at its April meeting the intergovernmental agreement for participation in the Regional Office of Education #26 ALOP program for the 20262027 school year, Twomey told the Board with the new mental health services that will be in place, he will be making a decision at the end of the fall term if the district will scale back, from 120 students to 60 taking part in the program, or eliminate participation altogether after the school year is over.
Strategic Plan Presentation: Melissa Peterson, District Transportation Manager When the Macomb Board of Education voted last year to nix renewing its contract with Durham for the district’s transportation services and voted to move to an in-house service, Richard Klaus, senior vice president of operations for Durham, challenged the notion that moving to an in-house model will save the district money and that they’d face the same challenges in finding enough drivers to cover the routes that Durham experienced.
District Transportation Manager Melissa Peterson, who was hired to this new role in October 2025, shared a much different story in a presentation to the Board Monday evening.
“When I was hired, I set goals for the 2025-2026 school year, and we’ve worked hard to meet those goals,” Peterson explained.
The number one goal was to build capacity and be fully staffed, and according to Peterson, the in-house department is fully-staffed, with its drivers trained in CPR (another goal) and attending monthly safety meetings (another goal). In addition, the department has implemented a transportation handbook, and drivers and staff continue to build positive relationships with students and their families.
“We have incredible staff who work very hard,” Peterson said while sharing slides of the transportation staff and their roles. “We are not struggling with staffing, and we are continuing to create tools and incentives to improve transportation.”
Drivers are encouraged to talk their students more and get to know them and provide positive reinforcement for good behavior: candy at the end of the bus ride, for example – Peterson said with a laugh that their candy budget has increased; Bomber Bucks; positive calls home to parents/guardians; and Bomber Bus of the Month, in which each student on the bus with the least infractions gets a gift card.
“The kids are really responding to the positive reinforcement, and the calls home to report good behavior is really boosting our positive relationships with families,” she added.
Peterson said while they’ve met their goals for 2025-2026, she’s continuing to look for ways to improve the transportation department. Her goals for the upcoming school year include maintaining capacity of the employee pool; continuing to improve the bus environment; provide de-escalation training to drivers and monitors; creating a space for celebrations for reaching goals; and improving the training system for all new transportation staff.
“I’m extremely happy with our transportation department. We moved to an in-house service because we felt the previous vendor was not providing the services we needed, including getting students to and from school on time,” Twomey shared. “We continuously had two or three buses that were not on time, and teachers staying after school with students because there wasn’t a bus there to pick up the kids due to their driver shortages. Scott (Schauble) and Melissa began thinking outside of the box immediately when we moved in-house and things are going very well.”
