Quincy Reporter

Mendon Community Unit School District 4 Board of Education met Nov. 20.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

1. Call To Order - Pledge of Allegiance

BOE members Arnsman - Fleer - Garmer - Janssen - McClelland - Rolando (absent)- Shaffer Supt. Riddle Admins Arnsman-Sheffler Bus. Mngr. Whelan

C.A.T. Coordinator - Klusmeyer

2. Approval of Agenda Motion. Janssen 2nd: Shaffer Vote: 6-0 approved

3. Public Participation - Visitor and Comments (3 min. Limit)

3.1 Special Recognition

3.1.1 Congratulations to our Middle School Staff and Students for their EXEMPLARY designation placing their recent performance on the annual state testing in the top 10% of all schools.

3.1.2 To recognize the outstanding efforts of the nearly 6,000 elected school board members throughout the state, November 15 of each year is designated as "School Board Members Day" in Illinois. Thank you to our School Board members for all their work and their "vision" that is leading our district in Building Excellence.

3.2 Visitors

3.2.1 Senior class officers presented their selection for their class trip. They project 25-30 students attending. The board agreed to act on their request at the December meeting.

3.3 Correspondence

3.3.1 Closed Session - The Board will enter Closed Session to discuss: A) the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors, or specific voluntears of the School District or legal counsel for the District, including hearing testimony on complaint lodged against an employse, a specific individual who serves, as an independent contractor, or a volunteer of the District; B) collective negotiating matters between the School District and its employees or their representatives, or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees; C) the purchase or lease of real property for the use of the District; D) the setting of a price for sate or lease of property owned by the District; E) the sale or purchase of securities, Investments, or investment contracts; F) emergency security procedures; G) student disciplinary cases; H) the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to Individual students: I) pending, probable, or imminent litigation; J}attorney/client privilege; evaluation of attorney; K) approval of certain closed session minutes for distribution to the publics or other matters appropriate for a closed meeting pursuant to the Open Meetings Act. An additional Closed Session may be necessary if all discussions are not concluded prior to returning to open session

4. Consent Agenda Motion: Fleer 2nd: Janssen Vote: 6-0 approved

4.1 Approve October 16, 2024 Board Meeting Minutes

4.2 Approve Bills and Activity Fund Reports

4.3 Approve Bills Payable

4.4 Approve Fund Balances

4.5 Approve End of Month Report for Previous Month

5. Administrative and Committee Reports

5.1 Principal Reports

Mrs. Sheffler elaborated on the preparation by the students and music department for the upcoming holiday concert. The students and staff are very excited to have the opportunity for a Christmas program for the parents and community to enjoy. Some elementary staff recently attended the Kids Summit along with Mrs. Sheffler which centered on best practices and instructional strategies for kindergarten students. The elementary designation was concerning after the data was reviewed and some apparent anomalies in the scores triggered the need for further analysis which the State Board indicated would commence after the Thanksgiving holiday. The elementary will continue with the required school improvement activities as they will help improve overall student performance regardless of the outcome of the analysis.

Mr. Arnsman shared the MS/HS had Halloween activities which went well and everyone enjoyed it and all survived. He also thanked Mrs. Knox for the Veterans Day program. It was well attended and everyone had positive comments about it. Mr. Amsman took a group of students to QHS for a Career Day presentation. The students indicated it was worthwhile.

5.2 Business Manager Report (Financial Dashboard)

Mrs Whelan told the board we are 33% through the year and have expended 31% of our budget.

5.3 Superintendent Report

The removal and replacement of the fans on the north wall with masonry blocks is completed on the interior of the gym. The exterior brick will be completed shortly. In addition, the crack in the west all will be addressed as well as some foundational issues on the front of the building. The far north entryway doors to the gym have issues with the bracing above which is going to be addressed to protect the new doors that were installed.

We will begin our 10-Year Health Life Safety review this month and complete it in December. This will provide us with some long-range planning for our district facilities and grounds. A list of priorities determined during a recent B&G committee walk through will be compared with the report and shared with the board in an upcoming meeting. They center around improvement of safety. Hopefully the HLS review will be in line with our priorities as well.

We began "Fill Up Fridays" this month as part of our continuing "Focus on the Positive" program. This is funded through our Teacher Vacancy and Retention grant. It has been very well received. There will be additional events and rewards throughout the year.

We have been working with Sen. Mary Miller's office concerning the ability for us to hire international teachers during the school year and not just during the summer. The State Dept has limits on the number of slots they allow to be filled and we are working on obtaining one of them for our HS science candidate.

Many soundbites this week have highlighted the expressed desire by President Trump to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Could this happen? Is this a serious proposal? At this time we have been urged to maintain a healthy sense of skepticism that the U.S. Department of Education will be eliminated since there are no concrete proposals in Congress to eliminate it, delegate the funding and hundreds of responsibilities that the Department has to other agencies, or to change any of the funding streams that the U.S. Department of Education manages.

One thing that is important to note is that even if the U.S. Department of Education were to be broken into pieces and subsumed by other agencies that does not mean that funding under Title I, IDEA or other critical funding streams would immediately or even definitively vanish. Prior to the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, Title I, IDEA and many other programs operated within an agency known as the US. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) which administered these grant programs and managed funding touching on public health, and social and economic security. The abolishment of the U.S. Department of Education would not necessitate the elimination of Title I or IDEA. These formulas could continue to be funded and administered through another agency. What is more worrisome is whether these would become block grants to the state or vouchered in any way, which are easier to cut in the long-term, but even then, changing the underlying Title I formula would require a massive rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and bring up a host of other policy questions and issues around the formula that would take many months to negotiate. We will continue to monitor this.

It seems as if we go in cycles when it comes to our custodial department. We currently are short handed due to one resigning, one on FMLA, and two on their honeymoon. I would like to thank those students and staff that have pitched in and helped out. But we are at a point where more needs to be done during the interim. We are going to have some interested staff work additional hours to help beyond their normal work hours. We will be compensating them during this temporary time of need. We have discussed the signage in the gyms before in our Finance committee meetings as well as during some past board meetings. Since we are at a point where we are basically updating and renovating our gyms, we thought it would be a good time to remove these signs so we can move towards a digital approach both inside and out. I have some individuals that are willing to come in and remove these this weekend.

6. Action Items

6.1 Approve any matter discussed in Executive Session as necessary, and limited to those matters authorized for discussion in Executive Session by motion of the Board and/or Personnel List

Motion: Janssen 2nd: Garmer Vote: 6-0 approved

Hire: Tammy Pilkington - senior sponsor and Jordan Zeltler - senior sponsor

Recognition of resignations:

Kristy Cadwallader - custodian

Maternity Leave: Melissa Klauser

Christa Wiskirchen - FB cheer coach

6.2 Consider and take action on the Tax Levy (2024) Proposal

Motion: Janssen 2nd: Garmer Vote: 6-0 approved

The Finance Committee and superintendent's recommendation is to approve again the current rate. We have set the rate each year to remain the same and it inevitably comes in lower due to over-performing EAV numbers reducing our bond rate needed.

Some background on the levy. Last year we lowered the levy from the previous year by $0.12 going from $4.55 to $4.43 (after decreasing by $0.06 cents the year before due to our EAV performing better than anticipated) and it came in at $4.40 again lower than anticipated due to our EAV outperforming expectations. So in the last two years we have lowered the levy from $4.61 to $4.40.

The EAV projection sits at 10.54% which will require us to have a Truth in Taxation hearing before we approve the levy (required if we increase by more than 5%) even though our tax rate will not actually increase because of the EAV growth.

6.3 Consider and take action on press policies first reading

The policies to review are surrounding the recommended Title IX changes.

7. Information Items

7.1 10-Year HLS Report in progress

8. Adjournment

8.1 Adjournment

8.2 Next Meeting - The next Regular Meeting of the Board of Education will be held on Wednesday, December 18, 2024 in the Unity High School Band Room at 6:00 p.m.

http://www.cusd4.com/uploads/4/1/9/5/41958557/november_20_2024_board_meeting.pdf