CAHOKIA HEIGHTS, IL – September 11, 2026 (STL.News) Cahokia School District – A prolonged teacher contract battle, students unable to start school on time, staffing concerns, disputed payroll expenditures, questions surrounding highly paid employees, and repeated findings in independent financial audits are putting Cahokia Unit School District 187 under increasing scrutiny.
Individually, each controversy might be explained as a labor disagreement, administrative mistake, or isolated financial dispute.
Taken together, however, they raise a larger question:
Does Cahokia Unit School District 187 have a systemic governance and management problem?
No court ruling or government finding has established widespread corruption within District 187, and Superintendent Curtis McCall Jr. has repeatedly disputed allegations of financial mismanagement made by the Cahokia Federation of Teachers.
But the problems confronting the approximately 3,000-student district now extend far beyond a disagreement between administrators and the teachers’ union.
They affect teachers, staffing, enrollment, students, parents, financial controls, and public confidence.
And increasingly, the common thread running through the controversies is accountability.
Cahokia School District – Teachers went an entire year without a contract
The district’s labor problems have been developing for more than a year.
Contract negotiations between Cahokia Unit School District 187 and the Cahokia Federation of Teachers Local 1272 began in June 2025.
Teachers subsequently worked through an entire school year without a new agreement.
The parties finally reached a tentative four-year agreement in June 2026, but union members rejected it.
By July, the district and union had posted competing offers with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.
The Illinois Association of School Boards reported that salary increases and medical insurance costs divided the parties.
The dispute has been about more than money.
Teachers have publicly raised concerns about staffing, working conditions and the district’s ability to retain educators.
Some teachers told First Alert 4 earlier this year that the district was relying heavily on permanent substitute teachers to fill positions they believed should be staffed by certified educators.
Those reportedly included special-education and kindergarten classrooms.
One teacher described conditions across the district as “very chaotic.”
Teacher turnover and staffing shortages are not unique to Cahokia. School districts across Illinois and the country have struggled to recruit educators.
But Cahokia’s staffing concerns are happening alongside a prolonged labor dispute and increasingly contentious questions about how district money is being spent.
Cahokia School District – Then hundreds of students couldn’t start school
The beginning of the 2026-27 school year brought another crisis.
Classes began Aug. 17.
Yet numerous parents reported that children they believed were already registered couldn’t attend.
Some children reportedly attended orientation, received Chromebooks and schedules, and arrived expecting to begin school—only for their parents to be contacted and told the students were not properly registered.
Parents described repeated trips to district offices and long waits while attempting to resolve the problem.
One parent told FOX 2 she was informed that more than 900 children had been knocked out of the registration system.
State Rep. Kevin Schmidt later cited the same figure and called for an explanation and assistance from the Illinois State Board of Education.
The exact number of affected students has not been independently established by STL.News.
The Belleville News-Democrat reported that even eight days into the school year, some children still had not been able to begin classes.
Teachers described constantly changing classroom rosters as students gradually returned.
The district had moved to an online enrollment process, and parents and employees said they were told a computer or registration-system problem contributed to the situation.
District officials did publish a May notice telling returning families to complete enrollment through the Skyward system by May 28.
That fact is important because the controversy is not simply whether the district offered online registration.
The bigger questions are why families who believed their children were registered ran into problems, how many students were affected, and why the situation wasn’t resolved before classes began.
Parents also complained that obtaining answers from district officials was difficult.
That turns an information-technology problem into an accountability issue.
When an administrative failure prevents children from attending public school, parents have a legitimate expectation that administrators will quickly explain what happened, how many students were affected, and what they’re doing to correct it.
Cahokia School District – Financial allegations add another layer
Meanwhile, the teachers union has spent months making serious allegations about District 187’s financial practices.
Those allegations must be treated carefully.
They are allegations — not findings of criminal wrongdoing.
McCall has repeatedly denied that the district is improperly paying people who do not work.
Nevertheless, the union says records obtained through public-records requests raised questions about employees for whom it could not identify expected evidence of work.
Union representatives used the controversial phrase “ghost employees.”
McCall rejected that characterization.
The dispute centers partly on what documentation should exist for various district jobs.
Union representatives have sought information such as timesheets, building-access records and electronic activity.
District leadership has countered that not every employee performs duties that would generate the same kinds of records.
The distinction matters.
An employee who lacks a particular building-access record, for example, cannot automatically be presumed not to have worked.
But the controversy nevertheless raises a fundamental question for any public institution:
Can the district readily demonstrate what publicly funded employees do in exchange for their compensation?
Cahokia School District – Questions about additional compensation
The union has also questioned compensation paid to Assistant Superintendent and former Superintendent Arnett Harvey.
Union representatives have alleged Harvey received more than $1 million in gross compensation beyond what they believe was authorized under his contracted salary.
District leadership disputes that interpretation.
McCall has previously explained at least some of the additional compensation as connected to contractual obligations involving Harvey.
The disagreement is significant because the amounts involved are substantial.
But here again, the central issue is not whether a union accusation automatically establishes misconduct.
It doesn’t.
The issue is whether the district can produce clear contracts, board authorizations, payroll documentation, and explanations demonstrating precisely why the payments were made.
Public accounting should make those questions relatively straightforward to answer.
Cahokia School District – Relative’s district job comes under scrutiny
More recently, attention has turned toward Kshon McCall, whom FOX 2 and union representatives have described as a relative of Superintendent Curtis McCall Jr.
Kshon McCall reportedly holds a district position identified as Director of Grounds and Landscape, carrying compensation reportedly ranging from approximately $96,000 to more than $110,000.
Curtis McCall has defended the position as justified but reportedly would not provide FOX 2 with a detailed explanation of what Kshon McCall does.
Historical district records provide important context.
Kshon Foresst McCall appears in District 187 records going back at least to 2013, years before Curtis McCall Jr. became superintendent for the 2023-24 school year.
The controversy therefore should not simply be characterized as a superintendent suddenly hiring a relative.
The more pertinent questions concern the employee’s current position, duties, compensation, promotion history, and who authorized those arrangements.
STL.News has not identified a court decision, state finding, or other authoritative determination that the employment constitutes illegal nepotism.
A family relationship alone does not establish wrongdoing.
But taxpayers are entitled to know what a publicly funded position does, particularly when compensation approaches or exceeds $100,000 annually.
Cahokia School District – Independent audits deserve attention
Perhaps the most important evidence comes not from the teachers’ union, but from the district’s independent auditors.
The District 187 audit for the year ending June 30, 2025, contains a summary of prior audit findings and their status.
Several findings from the previous audit recurred.
One concerned preparation of financial statements.
Management’s response stated that district accounting personnel maintain adequate books and records and oversee non-audit functions, while management did not believe hiring additional expertise to prepare the financial statements would be cost-effective.
Another repeat finding concerned journal entries.
According to the audit documentation, district personnel enter transactions, but several accrual-basis journal entries were necessary at year-end to bring the trial balance into compliance with generally accepted accounting principles.
A third repeat finding concerned the district’s legal debt margin.
The audit states:
“The School District is over the legal debt margin.”
Another repeat finding concerned the Capital Project Fund, where the district was reported as being over budget.
Another involved required training for Board of Education members.
According to the audit:
“Not all board members have completed the required training.”
One previous issue—late filing of the Annual Financial Report—was corrected, and the report was filed on time for the current year.
These audit findings do not prove corruption.
They should not be presented that way.
But they are extremely relevant when evaluating whether concerns about District 187’s administrative and financial controls can simply be dismissed as accusations generated by a teachers’ union engaged in contentious contract negotiations.
Independent professional accountants produced the audit findings.
When financial-statement preparation, accounting adjustments, debt limits, budgeting, and board training repeatedly generate findings, concerns about institutional controls deserve serious attention.
Cahokia School District – The common denominator is governance
This is where the individual controversies begin connecting.
A district can experience difficult contract negotiations without having a management crisis.
A computer system can malfunction without demonstrating administrative incompetence.
A school district can legitimately employ relatives.
An employee can receive additional compensation for perfectly legitimate contractual reasons.
Permanent substitute teachers can sometimes be necessary because qualified teachers aren’t available.
And an audit finding doesn’t automatically indicate fraud.
But Cahokia Unit School District 187 isn’t dealing with just one of those circumstances.
It is dealing with many of them simultaneously.
Teachers spent an entire school year without a new contract.
Staff members have complained publicly about shortages and turnover.
Parents say children who should have been ready for school couldn’t attend when classes began.
Union representatives are challenging payroll and employment documentation.
Questions have emerged concerning substantial additional compensation paid to a senior administrator.
Questions have emerged about a highly compensated position held by a reported relative of the superintendent.
Independent auditors have repeatedly identified issues involving accounting, budgeting, debt, and board training.
At some point, the appropriate question stops being whether every individual allegation is correct.
The question becomes whether the institution’s governance structure is functioning as effectively as it should.
Cahokia School District – Transparency could resolve many questions
District 187 has a straightforward way to address much of the growing controversy.
Provide documentation.
If employees accused of not working are performing legitimate duties, explain their positions and provide appropriate documentation demonstrating their work while protecting confidential personnel information.
If additional compensation was properly authorized, identify the contracts and board actions authorizing it.
If the Director of Grounds and Landscape position is necessary, publish the job description, qualifications, responsibilities, salary range, and organizational reporting structure.
If hundreds of students were affected by an enrollment-system failure, disclose the number, explain what happened, and describe how the district will prevent it from happening again.
If teachers are leaving for higher-paying districts, explain the district’s strategy for recruiting and retaining qualified educators.
And if independent auditors identify repeat findings, explain specifically how those findings are being corrected.
None of those actions requires admitting wrongdoing.
They require transparency.
Cahokia School District – Students ultimately bear the consequences
The most important people in this controversy are neither administrators nor union leaders.
They are the children attending Cahokia schools.
According to federal education data for the 2024-25 school year, District 187 served approximately 2,991 students with about 181 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers.
These students depend on the district for education, transportation, special education, meals, extracurricular programs, and preparation for adulthood.
They have no control over contract negotiations.
They don’t approve administrative salaries.
They don’t design registration systems.
They don’t prepare district financial statements.
And they don’t decide whether board members complete required training.
Yet students ultimately experience the consequences when those systems fail.
The enrollment controversy demonstrated that reality particularly clearly.
Children missed classroom instruction while adults tried to determine why they weren’t appearing correctly in the district’s system.
Teachers then had to help returning students catch up while continuing instruction for students who had been attending since the first day.
An administrative failure therefore became an educational problem.
Cahokia School District – District deserves opportunity to answer
District 187 and Superintendent McCall also deserve the opportunity to respond fully to these concerns.
Some of the most serious accusations currently circulating originate with a union engaged in an adversarial labor dispute with the district.
That context matters.
The union has an interest in challenging district management, just as administrators have an interest in defending their decisions.
Neither side’s assertions should automatically be accepted as fact.
Independent records are therefore critical.
Board minutes, employment contracts, payroll records, job descriptions, audits, budgets, Illinois State Board of Education data, and other public documents can provide a more objective picture.
Those records should ultimately determine whether District 187 is experiencing a collection of unrelated problems or something more systemic.
Cahokia School District – A district facing a crisis of confidence
Based on currently available information, the strongest conclusion isn’t that corruption has been proven.
It hasn’t.
The stronger and more supportable conclusion is that Cahokia Unit School District 187 is facing a significant crisis of public confidence involving governance, transparency, and administrative controls.
That distinction is important.
A crisis of confidence can be repaired.
But repairing it takes more than denying accusations.
It requires answering questions.
Why did teachers spend an entire school year without a new contract?
Why are educators reporting staffing and retention problems?
What caused students to miss the beginning of school?
How many students were actually affected?
What work is performed by employees whose duties have been questioned?
What authorized disputed compensation?
Why are some audit findings repeating from year to year?
And what concrete actions are the superintendent and Board of Education taking to prevent the same problems from continuing?
Parents, employees, and taxpayers should not have to choose between competing accusations to determine what is happening inside their school district.
District 187 has the records to answer many of these questions.
Making those answers clear may be the first step toward restoring confidence in the district.
Editor’s note: Allegations concerning “ghost employees,” corruption, nepotism, improper compensation, or other financial misconduct referenced in this report have been raised by union representatives or in public reporting and are disputed by district leadership. STL.News has not identified a court ruling or final government investigative finding establishing criminal wrongdoing by Superintendent Curtis McCall Jr., Kshon McCall, or other District 187 officials discussed in this article.
