LUDA

The Large Unit District Association (LUDA) is an organization of the superintendents and school boards of the 53 largest unit (pre-kindergarten through grade 12) school districts in the State of Illinois. Together, LUDA districts educate almost one half of all elementary and secondary students in Illinois.

LUDA exists to improve education in Illinois and to advance the interests of its member districts. It maintains an active governmental relations program and LUDA is widely regarded as the most effective education management lobby group in Springfield.

In 1993, LUDA entered into a partnership with the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to create the Illinois Forum for Educational Policy Leadership to influence educational policy in the state and to use the resources of both the College and LUDA to support each others' programs. One of the first activities of the Forum is the development of LUDANet, a collaborative computer network to link the superintendents of the LUDA districts with each other and with the educational administration faculty of the College of Education. The overall design is for the LUDANet collaboration to become the basis for a wider computer network linking the University with the schools of the state.

Four training sessions have been held at the College of Education at the University of Illinois to introduce the LUDA superintendents to tools for electronic mail and World-Wide Web browsing. More than 72 superintendents and their technology support personnel have attended the four training sessions (November 15, 1994; January 24, 1995; February 23; March 2nd). Here are some pictures from the March 2nd training session.

On March 11, 1995, LUDA held a Board Member Symposium "LUDA On-line: Education Technology for Today & Tomorrow" in Champaign hosted by Champaign Unit 4 and Urbana Unit 116 School Districts and the University of Illinois.