In a relatively brief meeting Monday night, members of the Community Unit School District 7 Board of Education voted unanimously to enter into a lease-purchase arrangement to acquire three new school buses for the district’s Transportation Department. Two of the 77-passenger Bluebird buses are equipped with underbelly luggage compartments, Supt. Shane Owsley told the board, which will be useful for transporting equipment with athletic teams and other groups to “away” events.
The action is congruent with the district’s plan to update the bus fleet, with a goal of having no buses in service that are more than eight to 10 years old. The cost of the new lease-purchase arrangement amounts to $101,630 per year for five years. The district acquired three new buses last year under a similar arrangement.
In other action Monday, the board accepted bids to sell two surplus real estate parcels and voted to sell about 5,100 shares of Principal stock owned by the district.
Board members voted unanimously to accept a bid of $2,100 from Peter Vallerius for Lot 171, Block 10 of Martin’s Subdivision, Gillespie, and to accept a bid of $1,814 from Richard Roth for Lot 1, Block 10, Henderson Place, Gillespie. The lots were two of 21 parcels declared as surplus and offered for sale during the board’s July meeting.
With one dissenting vote, the board approved the sale of Principal stock owned by the district. The district’s auditors reportedly recommended disposing of the stock because state law precludes school districts from playing the stock market with public funds. The auditors, however, acknowledged CUSD 7 could legitimately retain the Principal stock because the shares were a gift to the district some years ago.
“They said having these stocks was appropriate?” asked board member Dennis Tiburzi, who cast the sole vote against selling the shares.
“That’s correct,” Board President Mark Hayes replied.
FISCAL 2024 BUDGET
The board voted unanimously to place on file for public inspection a tentative Fiscal 2024 district budget, with an eye toward formally adopting the budget at the board’s regular September meeting on Monday, Sept. 25. Monday night’s meeting was held a week earlier than normally scheduled to ensure the budget would be available for public review for the legally required minimum of 30 days before adoption.
A budget hearing, during which Supt. Owsley will review details of the new budget, will be conducted at 6 p.m., Monday, Sept. 25, prior to the board formally voting on whether or not to adopt the budget later during the regular meeting.
Last year’s budget called for expenditures of $16.3 million during the fiscal year. Owsley reminded the board that the new budget is subject to modifications up until the time it is adopted in September.
PERSONNEL
Following an hour-long executive session, the board voted to accept the resignation of Donnie Allen as assistant high school track and field coach, post the assistant’s position as vacant, and hire Allen as the high school track and field head coach. Allen will step into a vacancy created by the recent resignation of Jay Weber, who accepted a position as track and field coach at Blackburn College, Carlinville.
In other personnel action, the board accepted the resignation of Kyle Lamore as middle school Scholar Bowl sponsor and to post the position as vacant.
INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT
On a motion by Weye Schmidt, seconded by Tiburzi, the board voted to approve Supt. Owsley’s recommendation to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the Mount Olive and Staunton school districts to pool transportation resources to increase efficiency and reduce the cost of transportation special education students to and from participating facilities. The schools are members of the South Macoupin Association for Special Education (SMASE).
“It didn’t make sense for all of us to send buses to the same schools every day,” Owsley said. The agreement allows the CUSD7 to use its buses to transport students from other districts to special education classes and to allow other districts to transport students from CUSD7 for the same purpose.
Owsley said CUSD7 buses will be used to transport students to and from Carlinville and Mount Olive.
In other action, the board approved an Employee Information Service Administrator and Teacher Salary/Benefits Report and voted to approve a District Consolidated District Plan. Both were routine actions taken by the board on an annual basis.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS
During an administrative reports segment, Owsley and building principals reported on an Administrative Academy Legal Updates Professional Development session they attended on Aug. 10. Owsley said the presentation included more than 200 slides on new Illinois laws affecting education, including new legislation aimed at combating bullying in schools.
The new law nails down definitions of what constitutes bullying, and gives teachers and administrators 24 hours to contact the parents of students involved when they are notified of bullying.
“That means that if you get a report over the weekend, you have to contact parents before Monday,” Owsley said. “Teaching is not just reading, writing, and arithmetic anymore.”
Administrators also reported on a workshop led by Damon West, a motivational speaker and best-selling author. Now a college professor and sought-after speaker, West was a 20-year-old starting quarterback at the University of North Texas. After a career-ending injury, West became involved with drugs, including methamphetamine. In 2009, he was sentenced to 65 years in prison for his role as the Uptown Burglar, responsible for a series of burglaries that netted more than $1 million in stolen goods. In prison, he met an inmate who told him being in prison was like being submersed in boiling water. It can make you soft and weak like a carrot or it could turn you hard and distant like a boiled egg. The alternative, the inmate told him, was to become a “coffee bean.” The boiling water doesn’t change the coffee bean but the coffee bean transforms the water to coffee.
Paroled after seven years, West became an advocate for “becoming a coffee bean”—using the challenges life hands to an individual to change the environment around them in a positive way.
Owsley said he received a copy of West’s book, The Coffee Bean, for Christmas last year. He read it and determined to get West as a presenter for CUSD7 teaching staff.
“He is very well known and he comes with a price,” Owsley said. “I reached out to the Regional Office of Education and they were able to help us make it happen.”