No matter what business a person is in these days, it seems that children and adults have shorter attention spans and greater demands to be “entertained”. We often fight it, but I see it both in classrooms and in teacher inservices. We are not as willing to just “grind it out” anymore, but rather we expect something amazing to fill our days. That’s not necessarily a good thing. Perhaps this YouTube video best describes the current state of affairs as we interact with others.

I anticipate that 2010 will bring a number of different challenges and opportunities for District 228, both on the local level; as well as the state and national level. One of those to be mentioned in this post is the American Diploma Project, which will eventually lead to nationally recognized, common core learning standards. Some may be worried that this will lead to a national curricula and perhaps even national assessments. Realistically, our students take a national exam— it’s called the ACT and it would serve our District and many others, if we more closely adopted learning standards that were aligned with the expectations presented on the ACT test.

The link above takes you to the Illinois State Board of Education’s page discussing the ADP, but you can also follow the link right to the core standards page. This is just one of the items to pay attention to in 2010! Have a great year!

Several Items were covered at this Thursday’s Board Meeting:

1. The Board reviewed an article in “High School Today” featuring Mr. Brucher’s Educator Night at a girls basketball game that has the girls pick their favorite educator. Congratulations Steve for recognition of this fine event.

2. The Board approved a property tax levy that will potentially reduce the tax rate from $4.05/$100 assessed value to $4.04/$100. There will be an increase of approximately $220,000 in Education Fund revenue, but this will be offset by an anticipated loss in state revenues of nearly $1,000,000.

3. The Board approved a new Health Insurance Plan Document. The Board recognized the hard work of the Health Insurance Committee. The Board also established the premiums for the 2010 Plan Year. A 7% increase was approved. This translates to an additional $11/month expense for those who purchase Family coverage.

4. The Board recommended a slight increase in rates for the SAFE program for 2010-11.

5. The Board approved a Health/Life Safety amendment to install a pass card system and door monitoring system at Northside School.

6. The Board approved a new, 5-year copier agreement with Office Machine Consultants for 13 copiers. The District makes approximately 4,000,000 copies per school year. The District also prints approximately 1,000,000 pages from printers throughout the District. Cost per copier page is approximately $0.01 per page, while printing costs range from $0.03 to $0.25 per page.

7. The Board approved the purchase of a new Steam Kettle.

8. The Board named the Superintendent the new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer for the District. There are significant changes to the rules and regulations for FOIA, and if you have not received updates from IEA, you may want to take some time to research these changes.

9. The Board approved the recommendation from the Curriculum Policy Committee regarding a number of curricula for adoption, K-12. The Board also took action on four new courses proposed for the High School Course Planning Guide. More information regarding those courses will be forthcoming.

The federal government has set aside over $4 billion for discretionary programs that are designed to innovate and restructure public schools. Illinois stands to access approximately $400 million. There are still some questions about how individual school districts like ours may be able to access these dollars and in what amount. Today the Governor of Illinois announced a new Council to work on maximizing Illinois’ potential to access these dollars.

The Geneseo School District has considered itself a leader in educational technology for several years now.  Currently all of the elementary and MS computer labs are being upgraded and we are replacing the elementary teacher laptops.  Use of SmartBoards and Promethean systems has grown and a goal of the Board of Education has been to put as much technology in student and staff hands to promote efficiencies and more effective instruction and enhanced learning.

The concept of One to One computing (where each student has a laptop or some type of individual electronic device) has been researched for quite some time.  It appears that there are new technologies that may accelerate the District’s ability to build into this infrastructure.

The attached link will take you to an issue about how the Netbooks could be a vehicle to expand individual student use of technology.  James Roodhouse, a leading technology expert and thankfully one of our District employees, has begun to seriously examine different options.  I expect that we will dive into further research with staff, students, parents, community members and Board members to see what the future may hold for One to One computing in District 228.

A great note of appreciation goes out to Mr John Puentes for his four years of service as School Board President. John led by example, and was always professional, reflective and considerate in his manner of conduct for the meetings. The Board has grown and become better focused during his tenure.
Doug Ford presided over his first meeting tonight as he begins his two-year term.

Information for you from our last School Board meeting:

1. Mr. DePauw, who is our HS Asst. Principal and also serves as the District Homeless Liaison, gave a very informative presentation on some of the rules and regulations regarding the McKinney-Vento Act and the services we provide for our students who are identified as “homeless”.
2. Dr. Swanson gave an overview of the report prepared as part of the K-5 Literacy audit she completed with Nikki Kubiak of the Regional Office.  The Board was very impressed with the commitment and direction of reading and writing activities in which teachers and students are engaged in the District.
3. Mr. Schlindwein reported on the progress of the Geothermal Project at Millikin.  He also previewed some of the door and window work that will be completed at the high school this summer.  He also updated the Board on the progress made by a committee he is leading along with Ms. Hepner, Food Service, and Deb Rokis, HS Nurse, for the District Wellness Policy.
4. Hearty congratulations to the staff and students at Northside School and Southwest School for being recognized as “Schools of Excellence” from the Illinois State Board of Education for having 90% or more of the students tested in ISAT reach Meets or Exceeds designation the last three years in a row.  Millikin School was oh, so close, to also achieving this recognition.  There were 388 schools total in Illinois who received this honor.
5. The Board approved a trip to Florida by the HS Varsity Girls Softball team.
6. The Board accepted a gracious donation from Timberlyn Lighting, Co. of a 20 foot scissor lift.
7. The Board approved acquiring approximately $22,000 in new security cameras for the high school.
8. The Board approved establishing registration fees for 2009-10 which now bring kindergarten fees to the same level as grades 1-5 ($60) and an increase at the HS to $90.  A change will occur in the activity fees for next year– students will now pay $25 in grades 6-12 for any activity– but will only pay this one-time.  In other words, if you are in band, choir and track— all three of those cost you only $25 Total, not $75.  The Board did remove the Family Cap.
9. The Board approved an increase in ESP wages for 2009-10, which will project to an increase of 3% in support personnel salaries for next year.  This does not necessarily mean that each person received a 3% increase, but the net effect should be roughly 3%.
10. The Board approved ordering a large number of Social Studies textbooks for the MS and HS for next year (nearly $97,000), part of which will be paid by the Illinois Textbook Loan Program.  As a point of reference though, the $45,000 not subsidized by the state finds the average textbook price paid for by District funds at approximately $75 per book.  This would appear then that even the $90 fee at the HS for registration is a good value for parents and students when the cost of one subject’s book almost consumes that whole fee.
11. The Board appreciated the efforts of the Music Department 6-12 for their efforts in rewriting the Music Performance absence policy.  A couple of suggestions were made for some editing.  Mr. Kuffel will be sharing with Mr. Scherer and a final draft will come to the Board for approval at the April 16th meeting.
12. The Board will be hosting a dinner for the Blackhawk Division of the Illinois Association of School Boards on October 14th.

The agenda and associated documents are all available for your review at Less-Paper site on our District website.