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Board revives code of conduct Committee plans to take up issue later this month By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com
Photos by John Konstantaras for Shaw Media
McHenry East High School seniors watch the sun rise Monday at Miller Point on the McHenry Riverwalk before the first day of school in McHenry.
McHenry East seniors start year with sun, selfies Organizers hope to build relationships, start tradition By EMILY K. COLEMAN
ecoleman@shawmedia.com
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group of McHenry East High School seniors gathered on the edge of the Fox River for a selfie with the sun. The bright sphere still was somewhat tucked behind the trees on the other side of the river, but many of the students had been waiting since 5:45 a.m. for the moment, a way to mark the first day of their last year of high school. They’ll close out the year with a sunset gathering, said Jack Miller, who along with his fellow student council co-president, Jessie Konstantelos, put on the inaugural event, inspired by speaker Keith
Hawkins who visited the school last year. “The meaning of it is to start the school year together and end
See SCHOOL YEAR, page A4
McHenry East High School seniors Devin Lichy and Jennifer Lopez watch the sun rise Monday at Miller Point along the McHenry Riverwalk in McHenry. About 40 students gathered to watch the sun rise before the first day of school.
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Inside: To view a listing of school district start dates, turn to PAGE A4.
WOODSTOCK – A code of conduct for appointees to the McHenry County Board’s numerous boards and commissions is again a priority for the committee in charge of it. Months after it was shelved because of other priorities, such as updating County Board rules to account for a popularly-elected chairman, the Management Services Committee will again take up the code later this month to move it forward for a vote, said Chairwoman Tina Hill, R-Woodstock. The County Board was scheduled to approve the code last December, but it was sent back to committee because of concerns some members had over potential problems and vagaries they alleged could otherwise scare off qualified applicants. It appoints about 250 people to at least 35 boards and commissions, a number of which have multimillion-dollar budgets. A state law that took effect this year empowers collar-county boards to draw up standards of conduct appointees are required to honor or face potential dismissal. McHenry County’s proposed code, based heavily off one developed by the neighboring Lake County Board, sets standards of accountability, ethics, fiscal responsibility and transparency. Besides ethical transgressions, appointees can be held culpable for things such as being too profligate with taxpayer money or for violating the letter or spirit of open-government laws. The ordinance gives the County Board the power to remove an appointee, after a hearing, by a two-thirds vote. Before the change, state law offered county boards almost no recourse by which to remove an appointee except to wait until his or her term expired and appoint someone
See RULES, page A4
Help for teens in McHenry County is now just a text away By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – An anonymous texting service for McHenry County teenagers has been rolled out in the wake of the March suicides of two Crystal Lake teenagers. The all-day, everyday texting hotline connects middle and high school students with licensed, trained clinicians, initially from the Hoffman Estates-based Child, Adolescent and Family Recovery Center, and, in six to 12 months, from the Woodstock-based McHenry County Crisis Center, a news
How it works: Text MCHELP to 274637 to receive an immediate text response from a trained, licensed clinician. A system that routes calls through a cloaking server ensures texters are completely anonymous. release said. The exchange will consist of multiple text messages, and while the clinician will not be able to track a student’s phone number or address, the student may provide the information, the release said. If the clini-
cians receive enough information and decide to pursue further help, they can notify school administration, a social worker or a local mental health provider. If the messages indicate a true emergency, the clinician will contact emergency responders, the release said. Denise Barr, community relations coordinator for Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47, had been searching for resources following the deaths of a Crystal Lake South High School student who was fatally hit by a train and an 18-yearold Crystal Lake Central stu-
dent who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Barr came across a similar texting service offered by north shore school districts and communities. “Quite simply, we wanted to make sure that we’re providing our students with as many resources as possible,” Barr said, adding the app intrigued her because it was anonymous and it was texting. Developed by a Lake Forest nonprofit organization called LEAD, or Linking Efforts Against Drugs, the app is designed to connect students to mental health resources anonymously as they or their
friends struggle with drug or alcohol abuse, depression, difficult family situations or bullying. It was developed following a string of adolescent suicides in the Lake Forest and Lake Bluff area three years ago and implemented in January 2014, said the group’s executive director, Andy Duran. It has since expanded to other neighboring communities and is set to be exported to neighboring counties. “It works because this is what students told us they wanted,” Duran said, adding teenagers specifically wanted
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something text-based, anonymous and local. The clinicians understand local issues and can connect students to local services. Barr decided she wanted to bring the idea to McHenry County and said she immediately found support. The McHenry County Community Foundation secured an anonymous donation to launch and fund the new TextA-Tip service for three years, the release said. Posters, fliers and stickers have been created to raise awareness in all of McHenry County’s middle and high schools.
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