West Carroll Hears Northwest Cooperative Presentation

By Michael Miller For The Prairie Advocate News

THOMSON – The West Carroll School Board heard a presentation from a representative of the Northwest Special Educational Cooperative, at their latest meeting on January 18th, 2012 at the Thomson Intermediate School.

The January 18th meeting was attended by Board members Mark Klein, Jerry Anderson, Beverly Kilpatrick, John Brigham, Dawn Rath and President Mike Highland, as well as District Superintendent Craig Mathers, High School Principal Bob Lamb, Special Education/Pre School Principal Pam Delp, Middle School Principal Julie Katzenberger, Primary/Intermediate School Principal Jeannette Ashby, Technology Director Brad Field, and Business Office Manager/Recording Secretary Sandra Aude.

A public hearing regarding the holiday waiver for the school calendar preceded the regular meeting. This hearing concerned a resolution by the Board of Education to modify the recognition of school holidays to observe the following: the third Monday in January will be observed as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, February 12th will be observed as President Lincoln’s birthday, the first Monday in March will be Casmir Pulaski’s birthday, the second Monday in October will be observed as Columbus Day, and the 11th of November will be observed as Veteran’s Day.

No comments or questions were received during the hearing and it was quickly closed.

Administrative reports

Mr. Lamb led off the monthly reports with news from the High School. This included the news that Mr. Baisden will travel to the middle school this coming week to speak with incoming freshmen about classes for the upcoming school year. A Freshman Orientation evening will be held for parents and students alike on Wednesday, February 8th. Also, Miss Illinois will speak to the high school on February 6th about the dangers of texting while driving and other issues.

Mr. Lamb also updated the Board on the Athletic Director’s report (Clint Cowman being absent). He reported that the High School Boy’s Basketball Regionals will be held at Pecatonica the week of February 20th, that the Girl’s Basketball Regionals will be held at Port Byron (Riverdale) the week of February 6th, and that the Wrestling Regionals will be held at Rock Ridge on February 4th, all seedings to be announced in all sports.

Mrs. Ashby reported that January 27th will be the district’s 100th day of school, and a celebration will follow with 100 balloons in the cafeteria, a prize for every hundredth child into school, awards for 100 days of attendance, and other activities. AIMSweb testing for mid-year has just been completed and the data is being analyzed and reviewed.

Katzenberger reported on the second quarter Student Recognition Assembly on January 6th, wherein members of the VFW, Bill Scott and Bruce Mottin, presented the Patriot’s Pen essay awards to the middle school winners. The essay was “Are You Proud of Your Country?” The principal also reported that the Middle School Spelling Bee will be held on January 27th at 1:30 pm in the middle school library, and thanked Tracy Rein for coordinating this activity. She also thanked Deb Myers and Bob Hartman for orchestrating the Middle School wrestling invite held on the 14th of January, as well as Brady Knop and Dan Hartman.

Delp reported that she’s completed her disproportionality report for the Illinois State Board of Education. An action plan is in place for the coming year to address any problem areas. This process insures that procedures are in compliance with state laws. Delp thanked Teresa Maiduk, the school social worker, and Heather Reynolds, the school psychologist, for their help with this.

She also submitted the schools’ special education enrollment numbers, which reveals that 227 students total are now in the special education program; 27 in preschool, 41 in the primary school, 36 in intermediate, 59 in middle school, and 68 in high school.

Field reported that the district had recently grappled with a technical issues that left their email temporarily ‘blacklisted’, but that with a lengthy phone conversation with support, he had resolved this issue and had the schools successfully removed from the blacklist.

Mathers congratulated the Middle School for their 95.94 percent attendance rate for December. He also informed the board that he’d received a phone call from Mr. Greg Michaud, concerning the planning of a Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan for Carroll County. Some of the benefits listed for the school’s involvement would include assistance for planning for tornadoes, floods, and storms, availability of federal funding for construction by simply designating the gym as a storm shelter, as well as the availability of grant funding to send two people to Washington, D.C. to represent the school, attend a workshop and access grants. Also grants would be available for preventative measures in school safety (up to $250,000.00). This plan would be organized through FEMA, and would be a federal program.

The county would need to have to have five meetings to initiate the plan, and the school would need to attend at least two of the five meetings. This would be a twelve to fourteen month process, with four out of the five meetings taking place during the day, lasting no more than one hour long. The first meeting is tentatively set for Thursday, February 2nd from 1 to 2 pm at the Carroll County Farm Bureau.

Mathers also briefly reviewed the 2011-2012 substitute teacher rates, which revealed that West Carroll’s rates are roughly in the middle of the pack, paying $75.00, with Riverdale at the low end with $60.00 and Paw Paw at the high end with $95.00.

Northwest Cooperative Presentation

The Board heard a presentation from a representative of the Northwest Special Education Cooperative. She shared some relevant statistics regarding the group. West Carroll is one of twelve schools in the cooperative, and some of the services it offers are hearing, vision, psychologists and social services. The Northwest Academy, operating at the Hanover Park District, offers help to students with emotional behavior disorders, and seven students from West Carroll take advantage of these services, with structure and support being offered to these students. The cooperative works to get these students and others like them back into the general districts. West Carroll has about 17 percent of its student body that need IEP (or Individualized Educational Program), which is about average for school districts. The representative added that a current goal of the cooperative is to develop a program for autistic students.

Mathers commented that the drop in students needing IEPs within West Carroll was a credit to the special education teachers, noting that the district’s percentage had gone from 21.3 percent to 16.8 percent, which means more students getting back into the regular classrooms.

Old Business

In other Old Business, the Board unanimously approved the holiday waiver, as well as the Board Policy updates. Lamb noted that there were very few changes to the High School Curriculum Handbook, and the second reading of that agenda item was fully approved as well.

Mathers then reviewed the second quarter Action Plan, reporting that he planned on concentrating on four areas; the curriculum, with the district planning for the transition from the Illinois State standards to those of Common Core, technology, budgeting, and the new requirements regarding the teacher evaluation process.

An overview of the second quarter financial report by Mathers revealed that over a million dollars is owed to the district by the state of Illinois, with no money for Early Childhood funding. This money should come in by March at the earliest. Currently, the budget expenditures report that at the halfway point for the school year, West Carroll is operating slightly under budget, though Mathers added that this is no doubt partially due to the fact that the Operations and Maintenance Fund has not been hit with the winter months expenses yet. He also cited various ways in which the district has saved money since last year, including the fact that garbage is now being picked up only once a week during the summer months. Mathers complimented the teachers, principals, and administrators for their help in keeping the district within the budget.

The Board voted unanimously to keep the closed session minutes of the meetings from July to December 2011 closed.

A review of the district’s investments by Mathers revealed that by the end of the month, West Carroll will need to move it’s funds into non-interest bearing accounts. The superintendent said he’d currently contacted ten other banks in order to try to secure interest bearing accounts for the district. He would like to cover investments but shop out to get the best available interest rates, giving the district both a source of revenue and liquidity.

In a brief discussion of the matter, Brigham began by saying that “I’m all for going local if we can,” with Kilpatrick finishing the sentence by adding “but we need the interest,” and Brigham nodding in agreement. By a unanimous vote, the Board opted to allow Mathers to continue to explore options for the district along these lines.

At the conclusion of the regular meeting, the Board went into executive session to discuss matters pertaining to employees, collective bargaining and/or student discipline cases.