Will County
Regional Office of Education

 March 20, 2020

Due to health and safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 virus, effective Friday, March 20, 2020, the Will County Regional Office of Education will be closed to in-person public business until further notice. Members of the public can call the Regional Office at 815-740-8360 or visit www.willroe.org for email contact information in order to reach office personnel.

 Thank you for your cooperation and understanding during this unprecedented crisis.

Food Assistance and Essential Services Map

Information on available nutritional resources across Will County is available via this interactive web site. Help is available! #WillSchoolsPride #ilschoolsstepup

1. Free School Meal Locations
2. Grocery and Pharmacy Special Hours 
3. Food Pantries
4. Micro Food Pantries 

https://c19-willcountygis.hub.arcgis.com/pages/food-resources

Educator Licensure Information System (ELIS) Issue

 Individuals may encounter an error message when attempting to log into ELIS.  The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is aware and working on the issue.  In the meantime, here are a few suggestions:

• Try various browsers: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, etc.
• Try to clear the browser history/cache.
• Try rebooting your system.
• If none of this works after several attempts, give it some time and try again later.  

If an individual is still unable to enter ELIS after days of attempting the trouble shooting above AND gaining access is urgent, contact ISBE at licensure@isbe.net.  Due to COVID-19, they are not available by phone. 

 Although renewal begins April 1^st for those due in 2020, please be aware that ELIS technological issues in the first weeks of renewal is common.  For this reason, it is recommended that individuals wait a couple of weeks before logging into ELIS to renew.  Apologies for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.  

 School Bus Permit Update 

 Due to the COVID-19 virus and based on recommendations by health and safety experts, all Secretary of State Driver Services Facilities are closed to the public. Essential Secretary of State staff are working.  All driver’s licenses, instruction permits, permits and identification cards that were set to expire on or after March 17, 2020 are being extended for a period of 30 days.  This includes School Bus Permits.   We recognize that it may be difficult to complete the annual refresher training during this period, so a grace period of 30 days will be allowed for completion of this training.

Constitution Testing Update:

Due to the COVID-19 virus and based on recommendations by health and safety experts, all constitution testing has been cancelled until further notice. Please check our website for updates on when testing will be available again.

Our Mission Statement, "Working with our communities to support student learning," focuses on three areas, Safety, Support and Success.

     

Licensure Renewal Information

Licensure renewal for all licenses due in 2020 will begin April 1st. This includes the Professional Educator License (PEL), the various Career and Technical Educator (CTE) licenses, the Substitute (SUB) license, and the Paraprofessional (PARA) license. It is recommended that EVERY licensed individual verify through their Educator Licensure Information System (ELIS) account if they hold a license that is only registered until June 30, 2020.  Documents to assist individuals with understanding the required PD for the various credentials, the instructions on how to enter PD into ELIS, and general renewal information can be found under the Licensure tab.