(105 ILCS 5/7-2a) (from Ch. 122, par. 7-2a)
Sec. 7-2a. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this Section, any petition for dissolution filed under this Article must specify the school district or districts to which all of the territory of the district proposed to be dissolved will be annexed. Any petition for dissolution may be made by the board of education of the district or a majority of the legal voters residing in the district proposed to be dissolved. No petition from any other district affected by the proposed dissolution shall be required.
(b) Any school district with a population of less than 5,000 residents or an enrollment of less than 750 students, as determined by the district's current fall housing report filed with the State Board of Education, shall be dissolved and its territory annexed as provided in Section 7-11 by the regional board of school trustees upon the filing with the regional board of school trustees of a petition adopted by resolution of the board of education or a petition signed by a majority of the registered voters of the district seeking such dissolution. No petition shall be adopted or signed under this subsection until the board of education or the petitioners, as the case may be, shall have given at least 10 days' notice to be published once in a newspaper having general circulation in the district and shall have conducted a public informational meeting to inform the residents of the district of the proposed dissolution and to answer questions concerning the proposed dissolution. The petition shall be filed with and decided solely by the regional board of school trustees of the region in which the regional superintendent of schools has supervision of the school district being dissolved. The regional board of school trustees shall not act on a petition filed by a board of education if within 45 days after giving notice of the hearing required under Section 7-11 a petition in opposition to the petition of the board to dissolve, signed by a majority of the registered voters of the district, is filed with the regional board of school trustees. The regional board of school trustees shall have no authority to deny dissolution requested in a proper petition for dissolution filed under this subsection (b), but shall exercise its discretion in accordance with Section 7-11 on the issue of annexing the territory of a district being dissolved, giving consideration to but not being bound by the wishes expressed by the residents of the various school districts that may be affected by such annexation.
When dissolution and annexation become effective for purposes of administration and attendance as determined pursuant to Section 7-11, the positions of teachers in contractual continued service in the district being dissolved are transferred to an annexing district or to annexing districts pursuant to the provisions of Section 24-12 relative to teachers having contractual continued service status whose positions are transferred from one board to the control of a different board, and those said provisions of Section 24-12 shall apply to said transferred teachers. In the event that the territory is added to 2 or more districts, the decision on which positions shall be transferred to which annexing districts shall be made giving consideration to the proportionate percent of pupils transferred and the annexing districts' staffing needs, and the transfer of specific individuals into such positions shall be based upon the request of those teachers in order of seniority in the dissolving district. The contractual continued service status of any teacher thereby transferred to an annexing district is not lost and the different board is subject to this Act with respect to such transferred teacher in the same manner as if such teacher was that district's employee and had been its employee during the time such teacher was actually employed by the board of the dissolving district from which the position was transferred.
(Source: P.A. 98-125, eff. 8-2-13.)
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Last modified: February 18, 2015