Panther Families,
After setting our clocks back over the weekend and moving into November, fall has officially arrived! We have made it through the grind of October and look forward to a successful second quarter of school. Thank you to everyone who shared in the opportunity to meet with teachers during Parent-Teacher Conferences. Parent partnership is essential to student success!
Our Panther Volleyball team is having a historical season winning their 4th Consecutive Regional Championship! They also finished the regular season with a program record number of wins, their first ever HOIC Small Division Championship, and finished 3rd overall in the HOIC for the best program finish of all time. The volleyball team competes in Sectionals this week.
We hope that everyone made it out to see the Junior High School Musical Flat Stanley in October. Next up for our Fine Arts program is our High School Play A Christmas Carol on November 14 and 15 at 7:00pm. Look for announcements on our website and social media for tickets.
Our Student Achievement
The Bloomington Area Career Center (BACC) is now the Bloomington Career Academy (BCA) and in a new location at the former State Farm Oakland Avenue Building (OAB). The footprint of the facility has more than doubled in size and has room to eventually grow beyond that. Currently, 35 LHS students attend BCA in fields such as Nursing, Fire Science, EMT, Robotics & Engineering, Cyber Security, Culinary Arts, Construction, Welding, Automotive, Criminal Justice, Cosmetology, Esthetics, and Heavy Equipment Repair & Operation. Check interviews with our BCA students on the LeRoy CUSD #2 Facebook page.
BCA currently serves over 800 students from 13 Bloomington-Normal area schools. They offer 21 dual credit classes through 3 different colleges. In 2024-25, 67% of Seniors were moving on in postsecondary education in their BCA area of study, and 76% of Seniors were planning to attend a 2-4 year college or trade school in their area of study. Last year, 776 industry recognized certifications were awarded to students: IDPH, OSHA, Google, American Heart Association, Adobe Illustrator, Office Pro, engineering softwares, and Automotive ASE. In addition, BCA is a great place to explore a career path and learn it is not what a student wants to do, prior to spending thousands of dollars in college. BCA is open to Juniors and Seniors, and will feature an Open House for Sophomores on November 5th 5:30-7:00. Contact the LHS Office or see the District Facebook page for more information.
Our Community Relations
While summer is 7 months away, we want to share this information as early as possible in order for families to make summer plans. After four years of evaluating our summer Panther Care program, we have decided to only offer services for our current 2025-26 school year Pre-K and Kindergarten students for the summer of 2026. We understand this means current 1st and 2nd grade families who planned on attending our summer program will need to make alternative plans for this summer.
Each of the last five years, our enrollment has declined. As a result of declining enrollment, we stopped offering summer care for 3rd-6th grade two summers ago. With continual declining numbers in 1st and 2nd grade, we reached our lowest enrollment in 18 years last summer with 11 students between those two grade levels. Between the Replex summer program and an increasing number of high school students interested in providing summer care, we are confident there are many options for our 1st and 2nd grade families who planned to attend our summer program.
Our Facilities
LeRoy CUSD #2 is aware of mitigation work by the City of LeRoy with city water. We always want to do everything we can to ensure the health and safety of our students and staff, so we made the decision to have our water tested by IDEAL Environmental engineering. IDEAL also tested water samples in the fall of 2016 on the heels of the Flint, Michigan water crisis and concerns throughout the country. At that time, the samples that were taken came back with no concerns. IDEAL Environmental recently took a total of 63 water samples from our buildings. While there were no alarming concerns, we did have 3 of the 63 tested locations detect low levels of lead. We quickly mitigated those locations by taking them out of service or adding filtration. While these three areas do not require parent notification per the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) Guidelines, transparency is an essential District practice that we believe is our responsibility and helps maintain trust with our families. We do not have any lead pipes in our buildings and all water lines are made of copper. All of our water fountains currently in use have filtered bottle fillers with filters changed every 3 months.
2025 Junior-Senior High School Report
Our Finance
Property values in McLean County continue to grow with an estimated EAV growth of 9% this year with the largest percentage of growth occurring in residential property values. While this is good for school and community resources, as a school district, we have a responsibility to find balance between providing high quality services for our students and being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We continue to have one of the lowest school tax rates in McLean County and, as promised, will use revenue from the County Schools Facility Tax to lower the rate more. It is estimated that we will receive $772,500 in sales tax revenue this fiscal year. One third, $257,500, will be used to pay toward our bond and interest, which will lower the amount we need to levy. It is estimated that our tax rate will decrease at least 20 cents with our December Levy for Fiscal Year 2027. While the rate will decrease, property values have also increased. You will have a lower property tax bill than you have without the lower tax rate, but it will still be more than the previous year.
Jeff Baughman
Superintendent
Go Panthers!
Key Upcoming Dates
November 26-28
No School - Thanksgiving Break
December 5
No School - School Improvement Day
December 19
Last Day of Student Attendance Before Break
December 22 - January 5
No School - Winter Break
January 6 - Tuesday
School Resumes from Winter Break - Monday is a School Improvement Day
Involved Community - Competitive Students - Productive Citizens