In Their Own Words: The Regional Superintendent Candidates on Truancy and Attendance
We sent the two candidates for McHenry County Regional Superintendent of Schools the same four questions about truancy and school attendance. Every word of both sets of answers is here.
How We Asked
McHenry County voters elect a Regional Superintendent of Schools on November 3, 2026. The candidates are incumbent Diana Hartmann, a Republican, and challenger Bridget Belcastro, a Democrat. On September 9 we emailed both the same four questions, told each that the other was getting the identical set, and said we would print the answers as given. Belcastro answered by email on September 18 and Hartmann on September 20. We did not share either candidate’s answers with the other.
What Is Not Here
Nothing in either candidate’s answers has been cut, condensed or corrected. Each candidate sent a short cover note with the answers, and those are not printed. Belcastro’s reply repeated each question before answering it and Hartmann’s numbered each answer; we use the questions as headings instead, and each answer sits under the question its author put it under. We do not publish either candidate’s email address.
The candidates appear in alphabetical order under each question. Their answers are set off with a rule down the left side. Anything not set off that way is ours.
We checked the factual claims in both sets of answers against public records. Where a record speaks to a claim, a note from us follows and says what the record shows. Some claims by each candidate concern matters for which we found no public record. Those carry no note, and the absence of a note means nothing either way.
What We Told Both Candidates Before the Questions
Some background on where the questions come from, so you know what we are looking at. The state reports two different measures. Chronic absenteeism counts a student missing ten percent or more of school days for any reason, excused or not. Chronic truancy counts absence without valid cause. In the three districts we have been looking at, the two measures have moved very differently since 2019. At Marengo-Union District 165, chronic absenteeism went from 13.8 percent to 25.9 percent while chronic truancy went from 8.1 percent to 11.9 percent. At Riley 18 the same pattern holds. At Marengo Community High School District 154 both rose, with absenteeism at 26.3 percent and truancy at 15.3 percent in 2025.
Question 1
Those are two different problems with two different remedies. Which of them do you think the Regional Office should be putting its effort into, and why?
Bridget Belcastro
It's worth being precise about what these two numbers actually measure, because they're not interchangeable. Chronic absenteeism counts a student missing 10% or more of school days for any reason at all — illness, a family emergency, vacation, skipping class, doesn't matter why. Chronic truancy is a narrower, stricter measure: only unexcused absence counts, and the threshold is lower, 5% of days rather than 10%. So truancy is measuring rule-compliance and specifically flagging kids without a valid excuse; absenteeism is measuring total lost instructional time, whatever the reason.
That difference matters for who should own the response. Truancy — unexcused absence — is where the School Code puts specific duties on the Regional Superintendent, and I intend to take that seriously: working with the truancy officer, following through on Juvenile Court Act reporting, and getting dropout data to the state accurately and on time. That's the Regional Office's responsibility, and voters should be able to hold me to it.
Chronic absenteeism is the bigger and faster-growing number precisely because it captures so much more — including excused absences tied to things like illness, transportation, and childcare needs. That work belongs primarily with individual districts, who know their families and can respond quickly. Where I can help is by pushing districts on it, sharing what's working across the county, and connecting them to county-level resources like workforce and health partnerships. I want the Regional Office focused on doing its statutory truancy work well — and being a genuine partner to districts on absenteeism, not staying out of it.
Diana Hartmann
The bottom line is simple: students need to be engaged in learning more to achieve more. While chronic absenteeism and chronic truancy are different measures and require different interventions, the Regional Office should be focused on the common goal behind both—keeping students connected to school and learning.
Our state’s laws and policies that directly or indirectly affect school attendance should be coordinated around that same purpose. We need to be thoughtful about how we define and respond to absences so that the message to students and families remains clear: school attendance matters.
For example, the addition of five excused mental-health days has created confusion about how those days are understood and used. Students absolutely need access to mental-health support, and legitimate health needs should always be addressed appropriately. At the same time, we should be careful that policies intended to support student well-being do not unintentionally send the message that additional time away from school is simply time off that a student is entitled to take.
We also need to recognize the changing circumstances surrounding attendance. Families have different views about taking students out of school for vacations, and there are differing expectations about when a child should remain home because of a common illness. Changes in how agencies address attendance-related concerns can also affect the tools available to schools and families when attendance becomes a problem.
My focus as Regional Superintendent is not on blaming families or students. It is on removing barriers, strengthening engagement, supporting schools, and making sure students have every opportunity to be successful. The Regional Office can help districts identify students who are disengaged, provide professional development and strategies for increasing engagement, support alternative learning opportunities, and intervene when attendance problems become chronic.
Ultimately, attendance and achievement are connected. We should make sure our laws, policies, schools, families, and community partners are working toward the same objective: getting students to school, keeping them engaged, and giving them the support they need to succeed.
At the Regional Office of Education, truancy referrals have decreased over the past years, and we have a McHenry County court award-winning truancy officer who has consistently handled the referrals that come to our office with excellence. He also has truancy support within the Regional Office to assist him in carrying out this important responsibility. At this time, I do not believe we need additional truancy staff. The reason is that addressing attendance requires more than simply adding truancy officers after a student has already become chronically absent.
The Regional Office has taken a comprehensive approach to attendance and student engagement. We have conducted public school-attendance campaigns, brought motivational speakers into schools to encourage students, and provided countless professional development opportunities for educators focused on student engagement, behavior, and school culture. School culture matters. Students are more likely to attend and remain engaged when they feel connected to their school, their teachers, and their learning.
And when a truancy referral does reach the Regional Office, there is an important process that must occur before we can intervene. Schools are required to offer appropriate support services and interventions and demonstrate that those interventions have been unsuccessful—that the school has reached an exhaustion of its available interventions. The Regional Office then becomes another layer of support in addressing the attendance issue. Our goal is not simply to respond to truancy; it is to help schools prevent students from reaching that point in the first place.
Marengo Weekly note: As of September 2026 the Regional Office of Education's truancy page names one truancy officer. Illinois law has excused up to five mental or behavioral health days a year, with no medical note required, since January 1, 2022 (105 ILCS 5/26-1), and the State Board of Education's guidance says those days count toward chronic absenteeism.
Question 2
The School Code gives the Regional Superintendent specific truancy duties, including informing the county or district truant officer, reporting truant minors under the Juvenile Court Act, and reporting dropout figures to the State Board each January. In practice, how much of truancy enforcement do you see sitting with the Regional Office as against the individual districts?
Marengo Weekly note: This question, as we sent it to both candidates, misstated the law, and the error is ours. The January report of dropout figures was removed from the School Code in 2007 (Public Act 95-496). Today school districts send the Regional Superintendent a quarterly list of students who have left school, which the superintendent must pass to the truant officer (105 ILCS 5/26-3a). The superintendent may, but is not required to, report a truant minor under the Juvenile Court Act (26-15), and truancy data goes to the State Board of Education by August 15 each year (26-3d). Where an answer repeats our wording, that is why.
Bridget Belcastro
In practice, I see it as a partnership with two different jobs. The Regional Office holds the formal, statutory pieces — informing the truant officer, reporting truant minors under the Juvenile Court Act, reporting dropout figures to the state each January — and those are non-negotiable duties I'll make sure our office executes reliably.
But by the time a case reaches that point, a lot has already gone wrong for that student and family. The earlier work happens at the district and school level because that's where the relationships are. Schools should be flagging a student before they cross the chronic-absence threshold, making a phone call or home visit, understanding whether a family is struggling with transportation, childcare, or something else keeping their child from getting to school. McHenry County currently has one truancy officer for every district in the county, which isn't enough capacity to do more than react. I'd add staffing and build better shared data between districts and the ROE so we can flag students before they reach the 10% threshold. I want the Regional Office to have access to that early-intervention data, not just the case counts once something reaches a formal referral. That would let us see whether early support is actually working — how many students get flagged, how many get support, and how many still end up needing a formal referral — and where districts need help. The point is giving the ROE what it needs to do its job well, so formal enforcement gets used as rarely as possible.
Marengo Weekly note: As of September 2026 the Regional Office of Education's truancy page names one truancy officer.
Diana Hartmann
As previously mentioned, the roles of the individual school districts and the Regional Office are different, but we are collaborators and partners working toward the same goal: keeping students in school and engaged in learning. The districts are on the front lines with students and families and are responsible for addressing attendance concerns and exhausting appropriate interventions and supports. The Regional Office serves as an additional layer of support.
We will continue to provide the supports that have proven valuable to our districts, including professional development, student engagement initiatives, motivational speakers, attendance campaigns, and safety supports. Our role is not simply to enforce attendance requirements after a problem develops; it is also to help districts build the conditions that encourage students to attend, participate, and succeed.
The process also needs to recognize that attendance challenges can involve circumstances beyond the school walls. When a student or guardian needs additional community support, connections to appropriate community resources can be made as part of the school or truancy process. Connecting families with the right resources can help address barriers to attendance and give students a better opportunity to remain engaged in school.
We also have a responsibility to look beyond the individual truancy case and examine whether our state policies and laws are working together in a way that makes sense for students and schools. The Regional Office will continue collaborating with our legislators, providing information and testimony, and helping coordinate efforts to make school-attendance laws clear, consistent, and focused on the same objective.
Question 3
Regional Offices administer the Truants' Alternative and Optional Education Program. What would you want that program to look like in McHenry County over the next four years?
Marengo Weekly note: Neither the Regional Office of Education nor any McHenry County school district appears in the State Board of Education's directories of Truants' Alternative and Optional Education Programs for 2023-24 or 2025-26. We found no public record of applications that were not funded.
Bridget Belcastro
McHenry County's Regional Office does not currently have a TAOEP program, and none of our individual districts do either. The ROE has applied for TAOEP funding in the past and wasn't awarded it. That's worth understanding correctly — TAOEP isn't something you're simply entitled to as an eligible entity. ISBE runs it as a competitive Request for Proposals, and applications are evaluated on the quality of the program design, the data behind the need, the partnerships involved, and how outcomes will be measured. Entities also have to be prequalified through the state's Grant Accountability and Transparency Act portal before they can even apply.
Given that, I'd want our next application to actually reflect what the data shows and what the county needs — grounded in real attendance numbers by district, built around a partnership with the county's Workforce Network Young Adult Workforce Program for older students, and connected to local health and mental health providers so the program addresses why students are missing school, not just where. I'd also reach out to Regional Offices that have successfully secured TAOEP funding to learn from how they built their applications, rather than starting from scratch on our own. I'd treat pursuing this seriously — not as a one-time application, but as infrastructure I want in place for the county within my first term, with a plan for what happens if we're not funded the first time we try.
Diana Hartmann
First, I think it is important to clarify the premise of the question. The Truants' Alternative and Optional Education Program (TAOEP) is a competitive grant program. It does not provide guaranteed funding and cannot be relied upon to sustain all of the alternative programs that have been developed to serve students in our county. There is currently a significant statewide discussion about TAOEP and other forms of alternative education funding, and I believe that discussion needs to continue.
Districts do not have to wait for TAOEP funding to create alternative learning opportunities. Districts can develop alternative education programs at any time, and many of our McHenry County districts already have options available for students who need a different educational setting or approach.
For districts—particularly smaller districts—that may not have the resources or enrollment to create their own alternative option, the Regional Office has stepped in to provide credit recovery and alternative learning opportunities. That is what partnership looks like. As a collaborator with our districts, our goal is for districts to have the capacity and resources to offer these services to their own students whenever possible. The Regional Office does not want to compete with our districts or duplicate services they are capable of providing. We want to strengthen districts and fill gaps when a district cannot reasonably provide an option on its own.
We work with districts to identify the need and look for solutions that are sustainable with the funding and resources available rather than creating programs that cannot be maintained long term. Over the next four years, I want the Regional Office to continue being a resource and a problem-solver. We should look at the individual needs of students, the capacity of each district, and the resources available before determining what solution makes the most sense.
Our goal should be to provide students who are disengaged from their current educational setting with meaningful pathways back to learning and, ultimately, high school completion.
TAOEP also has a fundamental funding challenge that deserves attention. When a program is successful and fewer students require its services, the need can appear smaller on paper—which can result in decreased funding. That creates a difficult cycle for programs designed to solve the very problem they are funded to address. At the same time, some districts have very limited funding options for alternative education.
I believe the Regional Office should continue to advocate for practical and sustainable funding solutions at the state level while doing what we can locally to support students today. We should not build programs with no model of consistent funding; we should build solutions that meet student needs and can be sustained. The Regional Office, districts, legislators, families, and community partners all have a role in creating those opportunities. Most importantly, we should always look first at how we can empower our districts to serve their own students and use the Regional Office to support them when additional capacity or resources are needed.
Question 4
Is there anything about the way attendance and truancy are handled in this county now that you would change?
Bridget Belcastro
Two things. First, I think the county's approach leans too heavily on enforcement arriving after problems are already serious, rather than identifying and supporting students earlier — and a lot of that comes down to staffing. McHenry County currently has one truancy officer covering every district in the county, which isn't enough capacity to do more than react once a case is already serious. I'd want the Regional Office staffed to actively help districts build early-warning systems, and I'd want our own office's outreach — home visits, direct contact with families — to happen sooner and more consistently. I'd also commit to a public, annual countywide attendance report, so residents can see the trend clearly instead of hearing about it only when a reporter pulls state data.
Second, the office's own finances don't currently reflect its stated priorities. The most recent audit shows the ROE's budget surplus has grown past $2 million, up from about $200,000 when the current officeholder took over. That's real money that could be funding a second truancy officer and the staff capacity to build a genuinely competitive TAOEP application — something the ROE has tried before without success. If truancy and attendance are genuinely a priority, we shouldn't be sitting on resources that could be building the staffing and infrastructure this work actually needs.
Marengo Weekly note: The Illinois Auditor General's audits of the Regional Office report its total net position, which is the audits' term, as $203,030 on June 30, 2021, under the previous Regional Superintendent; $211,896 on June 30, 2022, the fiscal year in which Hartmann took office; and $2,061,016 on June 30, 2025.
Diana Hartmann
Yes. I believe there is always room to improve, but the changes I would pursue are focused on better coordination, stronger prevention, and more support for schools and students—not simply adding more enforcement.
The bottom line remains that students need to be engaged in learning more to achieve more. The Regional Office and individual school districts have different responsibilities when it comes to attendance and truancy, but we are partners working toward the same goal. I would continue strengthening that partnership so that attendance concerns are addressed as early as possible, before a student reaches the point of chronic truancy.
The Regional Office has already developed statewide systems of support for schools, with this initiative beginning in October. These supports include school improvement facilitation, professional learning, instructional coaching, and additional services designed to help schools identify and address their individual needs. I see this as an important part of attendance work because school culture, instructional quality, student engagement, and relationships all contribute to whether students want to be in school and remain connected to learning.
Our professional development team continues to expand the services we offer to districts. From our Excellence in Education Summer Conference, to in-district professional development, to multi-district ROE offerings, we are a learning partner for our districts. If a district has a need that the Regional Office cannot provide directly, we can help connect that district with an outside agency that can provide the service in a very cost-effective manner. My commitment is to find solutions.
I would also continue advocating at the state level for attendance laws and policies that are clear, coordinated, and focused on the common objective of keeping students in school. The different definitions and policies surrounding chronic absenteeism and truancy can create challenges for schools, families, and agencies. We need policies that recognize legitimate student and family circumstances while also maintaining a clear expectation that school attendance is important and students should be in school whenever they reasonably can be.
Our referrals have decreased, our truancy officer has demonstrated excellence in his work, and we have support within the office to assist him. Instead, I would continue investing in the broader system—student engagement, school culture, professional learning, instructional support, alternative learning opportunities, community connections, and early intervention.
We will continue to build, collaborate, and find sustainable solutions with our districts. The Regional Office should be the partner districts can turn to when they need support, expertise, professional learning, or help finding a resource.
Ultimately, I want to see an attendance system where schools have the tools to engage students, families have access to appropriate supports, districts have sustainable options, and the Regional Office provides the expertise and collaboration necessary to fill the gaps. That is how we move from simply responding to truancy to preventing disengagement and helping more students succeed.
