The small crowd assembled in the Reber Center was hushed as Superintendent Dr. Timothy Kilrea handed off the microphone to Gov. Bruce Rauner. On May 9 Rauner addressed a group of students gathered from Mark Doyle’s and Adam Gryglak’s U.S. history classes.

Rauner took the opportunity during his visit at LT to discuss the need for legislators in Springfield to come to a compromise in order to restore the state’s image, build a balanced budget and instill education reform statewide.

“We have fewer jobs than we had in Illinois 17 years ago,” Rauner said to the cluster of 16- to-17-year old students. “We’re not growing, we’re pretty much flat lined.”

Illinois has carried on without a budget for the past 10 months and the lack of fiscal policy in place drastically affects the amount of funding the state is able to provide to public elementary, middle, high schools and universities, Rauner said.

Rauner shared his concern about the amount of state dollars that have been fed into the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system over the past several decades and vowed to fight for more funding for LT and similar suburban schools in order to keep these schools opening on time and from relying less heavily upon revenue from property taxes.

“We have to stop treating our schools like political footballs,” Rauner said. “We need to make schools our top priority no matter what else happens in the state budget. We bring in $32 billion every year and the first place that money should go is to our schools.”

Rauner offered solutions to the education issue at hand, citing pension cuts as a viable option to free up more state revenue and reiterating his condemnation of implementing further tax hikes.

“It was good for our students to hear directly from the governor on a variety of issues,” Kilrea said. “Governor Rauner’s views on the current budget impasse and school funding illustrated the differences that exist across the aisle in Springfield. Whatever your political views, it was a great learning opportunity for our students to see that.”

The governor left time for a Q&A session but the students remained mostly quiet, with only Student Council President Nick Fuentes ‘16 and Vice President J.P. Remijas ‘17 asking questions of Rauner.

Overall reception to the governor’s remarks was mixed.

“I thought it was really cool, I didn’t really expect Gov. Rauner to come to LT,” Brian Zak ’17 said. “According to my history teacher, we actually have never had a [sitting] governor come to our school, and I thought it was a really cool opportunity to be a part of those one or two classes that got to see him.”

On the other hand, according to Megan Chrzas ’16, Rauner only opened up to students in front of the media.

“It felt like everything he said was very scripted,” Chrzas. “He didn’t really talk to us until the cameras were there and on.”

The governor was received by Fuentes, Class Board President Kalyn Harris ’16 and Remijas who accompanied Rauner as he visited a Jewelry and Metalsmithing class during fourth period in addition to walking around the upper and lower levels of the library before talking to juniors in the Reber Center.

Following the Q&A session the governor and Jim Durkin, state representative for the 82^nd district,  addressed questions from local Chicagoland media in a brief press conference outside of the Reber Center in front of the LTHS Hall of Fame.

Rauner took the time to discuss achieving bipartisanship in Illinois’ General Assembly before lawmakers’ session ends at the end of the month.

“Emotions run high these are difficult decisions, these are big decisions,” Rauner said. “I think frankly it’s hard, we’re trying to hold sense in negotiations underneath a lot of glare, a lot of focus and deservedly so. I’m trying to respect the process and not talk too much about what’s being discussed in the working groups of the legislature and hope they get it done by May 31. We have to stay persistent about gaining reforms for our state government.”