Members of the Community Unit School District 7 Board of Education on Monday night, Nov. 25, celebrated BenGil Elementary School’s earning of “exemplary” status from the Illinois State Board of Education, and reviewed a tentative $3.7 million tax levy for 2024 property taxes to be collected next year. The board and school district also recognized BenGil Principal Angela Sandretto upon being named Elementary Principal of the Year within the Illinois Principals Association seven-county Kaskaskia Region.

During a detailed presentation regarding the state’s annual School Report Cards, Superintendent Shane Owsley noted that BenGil Elementary earned exemplary status, the highest level possible, while Gillespie Middle School and High School each earned a status of “commendable.” Exemplary status means BenGil’s performance was in the top 10 percent of schools statewide and that no student groups underperformed state standards. Commendable status goes to schools with a minimum graduation rate of 67 percent with no underperforming student groups.

“We have no underperforming student groups in any of our schools,” Owsley announced. “That’s a huge, huge thing. I’m extremely proud.”

This marks the first time a local school achieved Exemplary status. According to Owsley, BenGil Elementary is the only school in the county to reach exemplary status with this year’s release of School Report Cards.

Upon learning BenGil Elementary was rated among the top 10 percent of elementary schools in Illinois, Owsley said he contacted the State Board of Education, in part to confirm the announcement was accurate but also to explore how the state agency assesses school performance. That information may influence how the district approaches specific issues in order to boost scoring. For example, a small part of the score is based on the number of students who participate in a “climate survey” in which students assess teachers and administrators. Schools earn full value in that category if more than 95 percent of the student body completes the survey.

“They don’t care what the surveys say,” Owsley said. “They just want to make sure a 95 percent of the students complete it.”

Owsley said the complicated formulas used to assess elementary schools emphasizes academic growth in English/Language Arts and Math. Academic growth in those areas comprise 50 percent of the score for rating elementary school performance.

“What’s important is that you’re improving,” Owsley said. “That makes a lot of sense for a school district.” Scoring for high schools, however, “makes no mention of growth whatsoever.” 

BenGil Elementary, Gillespie Middle School and Gillespie High School all lost points due to chronic absenteeism. 

“Absenteeism is a big thing,” Owsley noted. “If students are in school more, they’re going to score better (on assessment tests).” The district is “working to find ways to address absenteeism,” he said, including programs to reach out to parents and students when a student is chronically absent. 

If the emphasis is on growth, board member Peyton Bernot asked, how can a school continue to reach Exemplary Status if more and more students are performing at the level of state standards. Owsley said he asked that question of ISBE representatives who told him they are looking at revising the formula because they “realize there are schools out there that are consistently doing well every year.”

Owsley said he looked into how the Report Cards are calculated because he sees them as sort of a “scoreboard” for school performance. “When there’s a scoreboard, I want to know how they keep score so we can improve our score.”

Owsley told the board that Gillespie Middle School came close to an exemplary rating, missing state averages by only a few points. 

“Look at how close those numbers are,” he advised. GMS matched the state average in English/Language Arts  proficiency and came within nine percentage points of exceeding the state standard for academic growth. Likewise, growth in math skills came within about eight points of the state standard.

ISBE gave Gillespie High School a score of 60.33 percent—enough for commendable status but about 30 points shy of exemplary status. While no student groups were underperforming, GHS students fell short of state averages in academic proficiency in virtually all subject areas. While the school earned a commendable status, GHS Principal Jill Rosentreter said numbers reflected on the report card were disappointing.

“These numbers lit a fire with the High School staff as far as setting goals,” Rosentreter said. “Teachers saw these numbers and said, ‘We have to change the way we teach.’ We’re not happy with these numbers.”

Rosentreter said the staff is strategizing to address some of the areas in which the school fell short. 

The four-pronged approach includes strategies to improve student attendance and behavior, programs to implement mentoring for teachers and professional development, programs to help students prepare for ACT testing which comprising a large part of the state’s overall assessment, and a social/emotional learning component to help students cope with emotional issues.

“If you’re shooting for perfect, you can get great,” Owsley commented. “We have one school that is exemplary and I’m convinced we can get the other two schools there.”

Earlier in the meeting, as part of a District Focus segment, Elementary School Principal Sandretto addressed the board about how her staff achieved exemplary status for the school. 

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“We are exemplary because I have an exemplary staff,” Sandretto said. She said teachers made a commitment to individualize instruction to meet specific students at their current performance level and bring them forward. “What the staff has done is say, ‘This is where we’re at. I’m going to work every day to bring that kid forward’.”

“We spend a lot of time talking about our challenges,” Owsley said, noting that small rural school districts perceive themselves to be hampered by lack of funding, higher poverty levels, and social/economic factors that would seem to make it impossible for them to compete academically with larger, wealthier school districts.

“What they’ve done at BenGil Elementary is prove 99.9 percent of the state wrong,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what your social/economic status is or how much the state underfunds your schools, if you have the right people in the right places, and they love what they do and they do it every day, you can reach the summit. With every barrier they faced, they simply stepped over it.”

TAX LEVY

Board members reviewed a $3,725,100 proposed tax levy for 2024 taxes to be collected next year. The new levy is available for public review either at the District Office or on the District website for the next 30 days. The levy is expected to be finalized following a public hearing on Wednesday, Dec. 18, prior to the regular monthly meeting of the board.

The new proposed levy exceeds last year’s tax extension of $3,464,254 by less than $300,000 but is expected to generate only an estimated $3,590,500 due to the impact of the Property Tax Extension Law (PTELL), commonly known as tax caps and adopted by Macoupin County voters in 1995.

Owsley emphasized that the levy is the amount of money the district is requesting while the tax extension is the amount the district will actually receive. The amount levy typically exceeds the extension in order to capture the maximum amount of money the district can receive. He compared the process to a child’s Christmas list, noting, “if it’s not on your list, you’re not going to get it.”

Taxpayers are protected by PTELL, which limits next year’s extension to five percent or the Consumer Price Index (whichever is less) of the previous year’s extension.

“Because of tax caps we would leave money on the table indefinitely if we don’t overshoot,” Owsley said. The district can ask for more money than it is likely to receive, he said, because tax caps protect taxpayers from being overtaxed.

While the levy must be approved in December, Owsley said there are some factors affecting the levy that will remain unknown until sometime next year. The district’s total equalized assessed valuation (EAV) will not be known until after the first of the year. The average increase in the district’s EAV over the the past 10 years is slightly more than four percent, but reached 8,59 percent last year. To preclude undertaxing, Owsley said he prepared the levy proposal based on a 13.95 percent increase in the EAV, even though the actual increase may be far less.

“If we base the levy on an increase of 10 percent, and it turns out to be 13 percent, we will have lost out on that three percent forever,” Owsley said.

The Consumer Price Index, basically the rate of inflation, for this year is 3.4 percent, meaning next year’s extension will be limited to no more than 3.4 percent in excess of this year’s extension.

Once approved, the tax levy will be submitted to the County Clerk, who will make the necessary adjustments in regard to PTELL and the district’s finalized EAV.

Broken down by various funds, the levy requests includes $1,650,00 for Education, $437,000 for Operations and Maintenance, $180,000 for Transportation, $42,500 for Working Cash, $117,500 for the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, $105,000 for Social Security, $240,000 for Tort, $32,500 for Special Education, and $920,600 for Bond and Interest.

CROSS COUNTRY RECOGNITION

During a District Focus segment, the board recognized the GHS cross-country team that represented the school at state playoffs this year.

“For those of you who have never been involved, I can tell you this is a group of boys that are like family to one another,” GHS Principal Rosentreter said.

Head coach Jay Weber told the board the team was “dead last” in their conference two years ago.

“We set a mission to improve and get better,” he said. “They’re out running at 7 a.m. every day during the summer and in 10-degree weather in the winter. That’s just a testament to their work ethic.”

Weber said the work paid off about mid-season when the team won the Coal Miner Classic meet, as well as invitationals at Southwestern and Carlinville. They placed sixth at sectionals and qualified for state despite temporarily losing one of their top runners, who suffered a stroke at school. 

The team placed 27th overall at state.

“Mathematically, our team should not have made it to state,” Weber said. Marshall Garwood missed sectionals but came back to run at state, Weber said. “It was really just a crazy recovery.”

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Chaz Oberkfell ran a three-mile run in 14:31 to become the first state champion in GHS, county and SCC history.

PERSONNEL

Following a 40-minute executive session during which the board discussed personnel issues, board members voted unanimously to accept “with regrets” the resignation of Beth Sies, district speech and languages pathologist, effective Dec. 31. In the same action, the board agreed to post a vacancy for the position.

Board members also voted to post a vacancy for a district GEAR UP coordinator. A grant-funded program, GEAR UP is designed to help prepare for college entry upon graduation.

The board also voted to post a vacancy for a Title I reading teacher position for the 2025-26 school year.

In separate actions, the board:

• Accepted the resignation of Michael Rodriguez as assistant GHS Women’s Soccer coach.
• Hired Cora Schalk as head cook for the GMS/GHS cafeteria.
• Hired Brittany Harrison as a six-hour cafeteria worker.
• Accepted the resignation of Alexi Lumpy as GMS volunteer assistant cheerleading coach.
• Appointed Chase Peterson as head GMS cross-country coach. 

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