001I'm not going to [Music] try Close enough. Close enough. All right. Welcome everybody uh to the January 24th, 2023 board meeting for the Granite City School District. First time uh we've been back together in about a month and a half. So, thanks for being here. I'm glad we've got a great crowd tonight. I know. Me, too. Uh roll call, please. Stacy here. Vinnie here. Here. Curran here. None here. Bryant here. Wire here. Lger here. We have a question. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to everyone to stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Uh tonight we have Pastor Alan Boer with us
002uh this evening to give us the invocation. And as he's coming up, uh please keep in your thoughts and prayers in a moment of silence which you'll start for us uh for one of our custodians at Kulage uh who passed away, Warren Williams, who is with us for about six and a half years. So please keep in him and your thoughts. And again, Pastor Boister from Hope Lutheran Church here in Granite City and thank you for allowing me to lead tonight. Honor and privilege to do so. Thank you. Thank you. As we uh as we begin, how about uh we have a moment of silence for the gentleman uh just mentioned it passed away this morning and then I'll lead us in prayer. And now we pray. Good and gracious God, as we look around
003this room this evening and all the thoughts that we have, even a heavy heart on the uh one called home this morning to be with you versus here on earth, uh we give you thanksgiving and praise. We give you thanksgiving and praise for the dedication of this man and for his service to the school district and the friendships and all that he had. And we pray that you'd bring comfort and peace and strength to all those that knew him and uh watch over them in these days and hours moving forward uh giving them peace and strength. And as we look beyond that now to this meeting here tonight, Lord, we see more blessings. We see the blessings of a school board and people here that dedicate their time and talents. We see uh loving parents
004that care for the children, of course, the children, the administrators, those that serve. all of these uh blessings from you. And as we think about these and these blessings, we do ask you now that you would lead and guide this meeting, discernment to do what is proper and right, what is God-pleasing, but also yes, what is good and proper for the students as they learn and grow and uh as we go forth from this meeting this this night also that you would provide protection and safety for all involved and uh continued education and learning and growth. Lord, we commend all of this to you that we would follow you in your ways and that you would lead and guide us as you promise you will be with us, Lord, throughout this night. In Jesus name
005we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Wonderful job, pastor. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right. First on the agenda tonight is public comment. you want. Uh well, first of all, is there anybody here that has anything to say this evening? Hearing none, I will turn it over to Miss Cam for some special recognition tonight. We're excited tonight about Williams is a wonderful human. In case any of you didn't know him, he'll be sadly missed. So, but on a higher note, uh we're gonna call up uh Mr. Wyatt Roberts and Miss Dana Brockman, please. Our wonderful [Applause] I've asked them to come out because I can do some of this, but it comes much better from all the information they have. Although I feel like I try to
006stop by enough and try to listen. I don't get enough get to enough of these present these awards and things they go to, but we usually get some sort of videotape of it and things like that. So, um, tonight we are recognizing several members of the Granite City High School band. They made uh made the Illinois Music Educators Association all state festival. I'll let him tell you how important that is. It is the highest honor a band student can receive in the state. It's the equivalent of when an athlete makes it to state uh except for band. They will be part of the festival at the Poria Civic Center on January 20th, 2023. But having said that, would you like to add any more to this before we call them up? Sure. Uh, basically the
007the process is that these students audition on scales and etudes that are are pretty intense. Uh, they audition against all the students uh south of Alb in Illinois. Um, we had 13 students make the district festival. Based on those auditions from the district festival, they submit more auditions at the state level if they're selected. And so they auditioned against all the other students in the entire state. And these guys made state. [Music] [Applause] So like crunching in the video, right? And I thought uh one other thing uh we had a student that uh made it's a new track that they have. This is a music education track. So, I know, right? Isaiah had to submit videos of interviews and interview questions and comments and thoughts on music education and the whole field and he was
008actually selected for their music education track which is Wow. So, are you going to go that's what what you want to do? Most likely. I don't know first year yet, but Well, so we get first dibs when it's done. I just want to not, you know, just want to put that out there. So, thank you. Well, that's really exciting. Double exciting. So, I'm gonna um call them up now. Um Bailey Hanks, sophomore student who plays the French horn for the Grand City High School [Applause] band. Take pictures. We all have to miss when you went home. You lost in a little bit. Congratulations. Lauren Phenoblio, did I say that correctly? A senior student who plays the tuba for the Grand Sey High School band also. So, come on up, [Applause] Lauren. Great job. Look at
009me. All right. Thank you. One more. One more. Uh oh. Uh oh. Totally didn't know you were almost Isaiah Tubby. Uh a junior student in music education for the Grand Sey High School band. [Applause] We have the other two kids up there. Oh, sure. You want to get with all the other two come back? It's a good idea. Here you go. Right here in the middle. I don't know. Yeah, we got you. You're fine. Everybody look that way. Thank you guys. [Applause] I have a question. Yes. So So you talked about uh you know, scales and stuff like that for the like for the tuba and the French horn. But what what is it? How do you do your music education? What is the explain that process? Sure. For the music education part, they had
010a series of interview questions. Okay. And then the people at the state level if they felt that these guys were serious enough the right background, right? Insights. Would they be part of a good conversation? It's really incredible. I think in our my entire time here, we've got one student. Oh, wow. Have you been here a lot? I've been here for a long time. And I wanted to say how much uh these two really put in to to these kids. I go in I'm there at five o'clock sometimes, Doc. are still there talking about what they're going to do and auditions and things. There's not a time where I don't run in and they're doing something. So, I'm going to give them a hand [Applause] for all of you. Thanks. Okay. Uh now we are going
011to talk about this is kind of exciting our friends from First Mid America Credit Union and we have president and CEO Mr. Alam Meer. Are you going to come on up? Yep. Uh, we have Martha Morris, Amber Scott, and Abby Mast. Did I forget someone? Okay, there we go. They're all coming in. They I will tell you something about uh Allen. They are amazing as far as giving back to the communities that they are present in. I've been really impressed. And he shows up at things. Um they they're always doing things for teachers, helping us out at the beginning of school, helping us out teacher recognition week last year. um the amount of things they do for the communities that they're president is just really outstanding. I want to tell you how much we appreciate
012that. We're here to give back and that's a little way that we can do it. So, thank you. Appreciate. It's a big way, especially this. It's a big check, right? So, uh we're going to have the the teachers uh apply for grants. Uh, do you want to explain a little bit of this, Martha? How this goes? Um, so we invite teachers from local school districts to apply for a grant and ask them about how that money would improve the lives of their students and shape the way they do things in the classroom. Um, and we get tons of submissions and it's a it's a real joy to go through them and get to select who um, we get to donate the money to. And we've chosen three stu uh, three teachers from Granite City and
013we're super excited to be here. So, we're happy. So, we also have I think uh I'm going to start with the teacher, but the principal, Miss Karen Robertson, is here. Can I raise your hand and come on up maybe too? So, her teacher, uh, Kelly Fitzgerald, um, applied for something for some items in the sensory room. So, Kelly, you want to come on up? [Applause] right there. Couple more. Congratulations. Congratulations. Good job. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay. I just want to make sure. Okay. Our our second recipient is Miss Marcy Sadabas from Griggsby Intermediate School. She wrote something about providing high interest books for students to read to while they were waiting the 30 minutes for school to begin, which is wonderful. So, thank you [Applause] I love the Can
014we go that way just a tad? There we go. All right. Yep. Here we go. We done. Okay. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Jason didn't miss anyone. Okay. Uh our next recipient is Karen Phillips, Mville Wilson Elementary Education Center for new instruments at Mville Wilson to add scarves to show movement which I witnessed as she was doing that in the classroom which was incredibly cool. So come come down here today. Here you go. Thank you. Congratulations. And I was actually I stopped by at the right day. She was doing these scar movement with some kids and they were so had some of them may struggle with engagement this particular class and they were all every one of them was doing it and they had dark faters. She
015was doing all kinds of things. It was really really an engaging project. So I think that's really neat that this went for that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Congratulations. [Applause] Here's the real one. We appreciate that. Even though those are really fun. Well, we just want to thank you again for everything you do for the community, for our teachers, and on behalf of Gr. Happy to do it. Thanks for letting us participate. Oh, no. Thank you for being here. Martha, I'm gonna get the three honories together. Back up. We'll get the three honories together. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let them hold the check. That be a cool One more. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate everything. Take care. Bye. Bye. I know. Thanks very much. Thank you
016for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Just gym actually. And done. Nice to take seats if you want. No, there are all kinds of cheers. It's always so good to get to have the music education. Nobody stayed around for the political education. All right, moving on with the agenda. Under minutes, approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of the board of education held on December 13th, 2022. So move second. Motion a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. Those opposed? No. The eyes have uh item number six, uh the consent agenda. We have the treasures report, bill list, and gifts. Um, anybody want to pull anything out of there separately? I probably will. And if you'd like to um it's just always nice, like I say every time when people donate to
017the school district and just come to us. It is just so terrific. Um, there was a company GD company where you dealt with them, right? Where was that company from? I received a phone call. They're out at the warehouses on and they had some hand sanitizer that they wanted to donate to the school district. So I said absolutely. Oh, definitely. Thank you. We'll hand it to the kids. We'll hand it to parents. We have different things coming up. So I thought that was great. I knew she can do that. So um this is really cool too. We have student of the months and we used to use I can say this right. We used to use Jimmy John. Jimmy Johnson and there's been a slight ownership issue. So uh we had the idea that we
018would maybe go and ask some other people and as usual the owner of Granite City Dairy Queen I don't have his name on hereby he stepped up amazing. uh offered um student of the month certificates for them which is just above and beyond again. So we really appreciate that. Um we also have the Granite City Cinema also our student of the month donations and for her attendance donations. So they're free tickets for those kids and that's another thing we think is just amazing to be able to do that for our kids that maybe they wouldn't normally be able to do that. So we're really appreciative of that as well. Um, do you want me to real quick just talk about your Um, there's also a request. Um, I'm kind of excited about this one. When
019I was a high school teacher, I took students every two years to Europe with EF educational tours and Kelly and Chris Hutchings are going to try to do that for the high school in the not 24 24 so July 2024 24 which is AF is an excellent uh tour group. They I literally couldn't be happier with who they chose to do that. So, if you approve that, it will be um to start that process, too. So, more members go. I think I'm going I haven't told her yet. Erica, I'm gonna go. I think the more the marrier. Great. I know. I remember. And then we also have the Patriots in the Park. They're going to be using the facility. It's changed around a little bit. Um we're very excited. We also have they have an
020essay information for Patriots in the park. We're going to be sending to our district students. We're excited to see every year we get some really good responses to those essays and so those have been published in red as well. So that's all part of what the topic will be. Oh did I miss? Oh gosh, what am I doing? So our retired principal, amazingly talented man, Don Stratton is always doing something wonderful for for us when he's here and when he's retired. He did this stained glass window for Griggsby Intermediate School. It is hanging proudly in the entrance area. I can't believe the talent and the time it must take. Although he's really good at it. He does them pretty quickly. But how amazing. I know. Did you zoom in on that, Mr. Mitchell? So, we're
021really proud and excited to have accepted that gift and we wanted to thank Mr. Stratton for doing that for us. Beautiful. Very nice gift. Thank you. And all around very nice gift. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Um, so if unless there are other things to talk about separately, I will entertain a motion for the consent agenda. So move second. Motion a second. Roll call, please. Noel, I. Courage. I, none. I, Bryant. I, Stacy. I, Vinnie. I, I. Uh item number eight, recommendations and communications human resources send retirements and resignation under item A. It is recommended the following retirements and resignations be rescended. George Collander, custodian high school, effective 3123. Alan Schmidt, math teacher at Kulage 2425. Paula Hmel Wilder, fifth grade teacher at Griggsby, receiving end of 2425. So move second. Any discussion?
022All those in favor say I. I. No. Item 8B, retirements and resignations. Uh, it is recommended the following retirements and resignations be accepted. George Coller, custodian Greny High School, retirement effective 11323. Miss Karen Robertson, principal at Prohart, retirement end of 2324. Cynthia Griffin, Cafe Griggsby, resignation 1323. Damon Dukes, pair professional at High school resation 122122. Leanne Klutz Professional Tra23. Cheryl Lali Cafe Coolage retirement 1231 2025. Laura Cell par professional GCHS resignation 1423. Mark Kennerly custodian at Griggsby retirement 1923. Lauren Moore par professional Wilson resignation 12523. Alan Schmidt Manage retirement 24 Wilder fifth grade teacher Griggsby retirement end of 2223 and Teresa Mitchell here's district response principal retirement 12423 move to approve second motion second any discussion. All those in favor say I. Those opposed no eyes have it. Item 8 C requests for leaves of
023absence is recommended the following request for lease of absence be approved. Carol Houston effective 121522 to 3923. Hon Kim custodian GCHS effective 11723 to 41723. Brandy Widell title teacher prohive 1323 to 41323. Um Cheryl Balsai Cafe Coolage effective 11223 to 4623 Williams effective 1323 to 32823. Dina, Secretary Wilson effective 22123 to 51623 and Kayn Glenn Professional Wilson 12323 to 41723. So move second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. The item 8 D requests for extensions of recommended the following request for extensions to leaves of absence be approved. Taylor Buchanan Professional Wilson 1323 to 52623 second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. You guys have it. Item 8E, extracurricular resignation for the 223 school. The GCSD9 administration is recommending that the following extracurricular resignation
024for the 2223 school year be accepted. Miss Ginger Whitman, third quarter lunch duty at school. So move second. Yeah. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. Those opposed, no. You guys have it. Item 8F, extracurricular resignations for the 2324 school year. The GCSD9 administration is recommending that the following extracurriculars resignations for the 2324 school year be accepted. Damon Dukes, assistant football coach, Gran High School, and Mason Ver, assistant football coach, Grand High School. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. You guys have it. Item 8G, extracurricular recommendation for the 223 school year. City School District Administration is recommending the following extracurricular recommendations for the 2223 school year be approved. Josh Mills, third quarter lunch. Judy Wilson and Mr. Terry Hill, assistant football coach, Grandson High School. So second
025motion to second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. The items have item 8H, extracurricular volunteers for the 2223 school year. City school district administration is recommending the follow extracurricular volunteers for the 2223 school year be approved. Aaron works for boys. High School and Hannah Amy, boys and girls track High School. So move to break. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. The eyes have it. Item eight I certified and classified substitutes. Always excited about these. is recommended the following applicants be board approved as substitutes for the 2022 school year. Certified Gerald Glinan and Bon Petrillo who unfortunately ruined us for a really good opportunity. Uh classified Linda Bellman, Jennifer Hart, Kenneth Prasma and Tracy. Any discussion? Glad to have all those in favor say
026I. Those opposed? No. You guys have it. It takes us to Oh, still under item 8J, Employments for the 22 23 school year. Below you have received information about this item. Administration is prepared to make recommendations or hope for discussion in executive session. The GCSD9 administration and interview committee consisting of Mickey Watkins, Genie Bratton, and Karen Hatch are recommending Miss Caran as an occupational therapist for the 2022 23 school year. So there's second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The eyes have it. Uh item 8J 2, I guess it is. Uh employment of pair of professionals. We're very happy about this. So the Brandon City School District 9 administration and the interview committee consisting of Miss Vicky Watkins, Mr. Parker, Miss Gene Bratton are recommending the following candidates as
027pair of professionals for the 22 23 school year in order to fill vacancies. Um, Megan Harton, Kimberly Jackson, Kendall Lions, Ada Moore, and Christina [Music] Rea. She's farther. [Music] There's consistency. Any discussion on any of those? All those in favor say I. Those opposed, no. The eyes have it. Item K1, employment of the Granite City High School principal. As you have received detailed information previously about this item, the administration is prepared to make re recommendations are holding discussion in executive session. The interview committee consisting of superintendent Stephanie K, executive director of human resources Jim Parker, executive director of educational operations David Keel and executive director curriculum Christristen Naserna and co renewal and innovation coordinator Mr. Steve Matis are recommending the employment of Mr. Timothy Mcristian for city high school principal position for the 2024 school
028year. You'll be placed on category 4 step one administrative salary schedule and approval is recommended. So move second motion and a second. Any discussion? 30 second run of him for people since it's a big position. Sorry. Sure. Um I think what's important too not from granite but from Collinsville. Mr. Mcristian. Am I correct? Uh close to the area knows a lot of people in town is currently a high school principal at Dcoin Dcoin High School. Make sure I said that correctly. uh for approx I know you replaced the superintendent who was high school principal prior to that. You have been there approximately how four years four years. This is his fourth year. So he were uh happy to have him. We're excited about it. A lot of background managed to get through co and come
029out on top. So we're pretty excited. Thank you. Welcome. So I think we have a motion on a second. Correct. Any other discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No. The eyes have it. Welcome, Mr. Mcristian. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much. Good meeting after item 8K2 employment of biology physical science teacher. You have received detailed information about this item. administration is prepared to make recommendations or hold for discussion. Uh the GCSD9 administration and the interview committee which consists of Mr. Jack Dew, Miss Heath, Miss Nikki Petrillo, and Mr. Steve Matis respectively request board approval for for Jordan Jackson to serve as the high school biology physical science teacher for the 20324 school year. Approval is recommended pending the submission of required paperwork. I heard this is
030a good addition. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? No. Very good. Item 8 K3 employment of earth science physical science teacher. You have received information about this item and the GCSD9 administration and the interview committee consisting of Mr. J, Miss Amy, Miss Nikki Petrell, and Mr. Matis respectfully requests board approval from Miss Olivia Beckwood to serve as the high school Earth science physical science teacher for the 2324 school year. Approval is recommended pending the submission of the required paper. Again, great. So move it. She got it. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I opposed. No, you guys have it. Very good. Uh, no old business. Under new business, item 10 A, undesated asthma inhaler and epidemic. That's correct. Um, I'm going to probably call on Dr.
031Ke for a moment. I will introduce it. Uh, this would allow school nurses to have additional asthma inhalers and EpiPens on hand to treat students who may require these devices but may not have their medication on school premises. Uh, Miss Jeannie Burke, our head nurse for Gren City School District 9, and Miss Dr. Keel met with Dr. Rana, a local pediatrician. They have been amazingly helpful to us throughout the last three years of building this. Um, he agreed to sign as the district's provider. Uh, Mr. Skoolie, our district attorney, has been made aware of this and has copies of the sign form. Would you like to maybe expand a little bit, Dr. Gil, on this? Yes. First of all, uh, Julie Willer is really the one who kind of spearheaded this. She's the nurse at
032uh Prager Elementary School and she was having a lot of students who are asthmatic coming in after outside recess and for whatever reason they may not have their inhaler. Maybe it's at mom's or grandma's or whatever the case may be. Um and so she was educating me on this and then once I put Genie Burke on it, she's a dog with a bone. So, um it works out great. Um, but Julie Willerette is really one who kind of guided this whole thing. And and what it does is it allows the district to have the the the prescription in the district's name so that we can have extra inhalers and EpiPens and that's for, you know, students who have allergy issues. Um, that we can have those in every building. So, and we can buy spacers
033very cheap. So, that we use the same inhaler because we just throw the spacer away and, you know, use it for someone else. Um, so it's not like one additional inhaler for every or anything like that, but it's just there in case they need it. Um, Jeannie Burke has already found free uh a way to get free EpiPens for every building for the adults and the junior size because they go by weight and that was she's already saved us $4,500 just on that. So, it it benefits our kids. Um, it's it really is. And we have it's in district policy also. We have policy on that on the whole undesated medication as well. So we looked at ISB law. We looked at all those things. And then that's what I was talking about in the
034new policy talked about that as well. Yeah. Anal pocket for us is is really going to be just the inhalers and the spacers. Um you know so Eric comes in and needs one and then you know we can use the same one for Erica. We just take the spacer off and just use a different spacer and it's as needed. Yeah. And we're very appreciative of Dr. R. Exactly. Great. Superintendent can and I have met with him through co and and I met with them and Dr. Ahmad. Yes. And so we've had a very good working relationship with them. But I mean a big thank you to him to allow us to do that and be the provider for our district. That's very very kind of him. So So we're hoping we can do this. So
035move to approve. Second. Motion. Second. Any other discussion question? Guess my only question. Are other districts doing this as well this way? Are they treating it that way or they they Yeah, it's they sent im uh they've got like um Illinois Pharmacy Association. They've sent information out to districts and things as well and Jeannie Burk's kind of done her homework and other other districts do that. The one question is and Dr. Ronnie even suggested we stay away from it is the um the NAM, right? Um so that that's another thing that's under policy that you can do that but that's and the boards before you have have said no to that. Um that's come up before I know. Um well they have the emergency they have that on there but other districts few yes they
036do have that as well. This is straight out of the school code as well. The schools I mean press a policy. Excellent. Uh roll call you say Brian. Hi Stacy. Hi. Vinnie. Hi. Kenogal. I current I none I I item 10B swift nursing agreement. This is exciting. So the swift nursing agreement permission is requested to approve the following agreement which is attached with Southwestern Illinois College. The agreement allows swift nursing students the opportunity to visit schools in these school district and participate in practical learning. Nursing students spend a full day with a nur school nurse during the spring semester in order to experience what a school nurse job is like. This practice has been taking place for years and entering the agreement. I think it's wonderful. I don't know if you speak to it, but
037it's been going on. I think it's great for us to be involved with local students and help provide them. Yes. Second motion on a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Stacy, I Vinnie, I Curran. Hi. None. I Brian here. Hi. Item 10 C sixth hour assignment. Yes. Um this is for permission is requested to approve the following six-hour assignment for the spring semester at Lake School ESSC. This will offer a work co-op class to high school students who are able to work. So the additional compensation will pay with the T grant monies. D you could explain this further, but it's a great opportunity. Yeah. So this is thing offered at the high school. We also offer it in the evening academy and we also are able to offer it at grade school, the alternative
038um school there. So if a student has a job, they um Cand Candy Parker is the one who teaches it at the high school. She comes over to Lake School first hour in the morning as a six-hour assignment. She teaches the work co-op class there, the content class. So a student gets a half a credit for the semester for taking the class, but they get a full credit for having a job. And so that takes the place of like two elective classes. So we all know it takes 20 credits to graduate the high school, but it helps you if you're behind on credits. So now I don't have to take um let's just say an art class and a you know um a business class if I already have a job. I get a full
039credit and it basically takes away those two electives. So you can kind of get caught up on your credits pretty quickly if you have a job and you take that class. So it's really beneficial and and she Yes, you're right, Superintendent C. payout money pays for that and it's an equitable approach for all students that that are now able to do that. It isn't just that they're now being penalized for being fairly school. Yes. And the high school is kind of limited. And so that's the that's the good thing about the alternative programs is the high school's kind of limited because you there's a lot more hurdles there because there's so many kids at the high school. There's 1,800 kids. So you can't accommodate everybody. But the alternative programs are smaller number. So you can
040actually accommodate those kids, you know, with, you know, decent size class kind of incentivizes their attendance as well. That's another thing. They can come in for half a day and they tend to be directly credit. It's a great credit recovery option, too. It really is. So the kids actually, you know, we talked about this before with Mr. Dew and myself and that high school administrative staff. You know, a lot of our kids, you know, they'll work late at, you know, at a fast food place and they might not get off till 1 in the morning. and if they miss first or second hour the next day because they're tired and we don't understand that they can get behind pretty quickly. Um so it kind of you know this is a way that if you have
041a job you get rewarded. Um so it's it has the you know the adverse relationship to what some of the day school kids have one more thing to be equitable and to try to graduation works out really well for so now she Candace supervises all that. Yes, she does. She contacts their um employers uh so many times a semester, reaches out to them, make sure she um gets time sheets, all those things to make sure that those students have those jobs and everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing to get their credit. Right. This just gets her six hours. She doesn't Christine used to do it before her. That's correct. Move to approve. Second. I don't know any other discussion too. Roll call, please. Vinnie, hi. Canal. Hi. Current. Hi. None. I Brian. Hi.
042Stacy. I. Item 10D. Creation of a weekend custodian position at Grand City High School. Uh, GCSD9 administration requesting approval for a weekend custodian position at Grand City High School. The job um listings are below. I'm going to uh let Mr. Smith speak to this a little bit. the need, why we really feel like we really need uh this position. One thing we're looking at is uh safety in the gym for whenever the kids are practicing on the weekends. So, we have somebody there watching the door, making sure the facilities locked up. That's going to be one of their jobs. Uh during the day, uh their hours are going to be 7 to 3:30 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. some of those days maybe prior to a football game or a softball game since we
043now have turf. Uh they will be addressing the turf fields. They will be taking care of the infill of them far as the rubber. They'll be grooming the field. They'll be blowing the track off, making sure leaves are off of the field, um and picking up debris around those facilities. Um, this is just another eye on that complex over the weekend because we do have I mean the the bands there a lot on the weekends and uh uh coaches are there with their kids. So, what we're wanting to do is maybe coordinate with the high school and the athletic department so that all the coaches are aware of the times that somebody will be there and have their practices at that time. That way, that facility we know is locked up. It's just a way
044to protect our our kids, our investments, and our facilities. So, approval is recommended. Second motion. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. I current. None. I Brian I. Stacy. I. Vinnie. Hi. Hi. And item 10E, creation of Brandon City School District 9. band percussion specialist. That's right. Uh GCS United administration requests the approval for the creation of a percussionist specialist for the band program. But I asked uh Mr. Roberts to be here tonight. He is going to give us a small presentation on the need for this. So Mr. Roberts, if you're ready. Sure. Maybe hang direct us to the PowerPoint. really fast. We can get you a new window. There we go. Okay. So, basically, uh I'm sure you'll ask why do we want to create this position? Um and again, this is not just about
045competition, but the school districts around us that we compete with uh do have these specialist. Basically, um they have two full-time band directors in their high schools. Uh one of them is usually the percussion specialist, the other the other instruments. Um percussion is a highly specialized section of our band where a flute player will just play flute all day long for every group that we have. Percussion have to play multiple instruments. Uh everything from xylophones and morbas and bells to snare drum and bass drum and crash symbol and There's 25 to 50 instruments that they require to play. Each has a different technique. That's true. Actually, Miss Um, so that that would really help us out just to have someone who does have the knowledge. I can play themish, you know, I can teach them
046the runes, but there's so there's so much intricate technique that really goes into it that if we want them at a higher level. We do need someone who's a specialist on those instruments. Uh percussion students also we feel deserve the same level of music education as our wind students. Um by creating a position like this, we could offer things like percussion ensembles where uh more students could be able to participate and perform in different groups that will really keep them a lot busier and give them more opportunities to play. Next slide. Uh what impact has not having a percussion specialist had on our band program? Um again, our percussion students are really behind our wind students. Um there's a thing called site reading. When you pass out a piece of music, they initially they sit
047down, they start to read it. Uh our winds will read it down pretty much, I would say, 90% perfect all the way through. percussion students, they're gonna have to stop and practice that for a day or so before they can really do that just because they are trained to play all the different instruments and the different techniques. And unless they've had a lot of private lessons or something like that and they could afford that on their own, they're at a disadvantage. Uh the second thing, marching percussion is especially behind our marching winds because that's another entire level of percussion instruments and you not only have to play the snare drum, but you have to march around on the field and hit your that's why you do it. Um, so that is another level of difficulty.
048And then, uh, just overall, and again, this isn't necessarily all about competition, but, um, our marching scores are impacted by percussion over the last few years with CO and all, uh, we didn't march a drum line for about two years. So, those guys are not only behind because they haven't had the experience with all of the equipment, but they also didn't march for two years with that. So, uh, they're exponentially behind and again, not their fault. Uh, we just we need to get them extra help if we can. Uh, next slide. So, how will creating a district percussion specialist help our students? Um, as band directors, we all have specialties. My specialty is saxophone and French horn. Little bit of guitar, a little bit of piano. The rest I can play along with the students.
049Um, but it helps other specialists in the district. Mrs. Brockman is a flute player and guitar player. Uh Mr. N trumpet and trombone. Miss King over at Grimby, her main instrument is elbow. Miss Lobos is flute. So in all of our district or staff, we don't have a percussionist. So that would be really helpful if we had someone that could go between all the schools, Griggsby, Koolig, and the high school to help all of our students. We could also again with that person expand the offerings we have throughout the district with percussion ensembles uh that we practice every day after school. Um another thing that this would also help is to help encourage the students to participate in different festival bands uh different band festivals that they go out and audition for. Uh we traditionally
050have quite a few wind students that will go out and audition. The percussion students are less inclined to do so because when you go to these festivals you have to site read and they're not good with that. So this could really help them uh to to participate in different groups like that and along with participating in these band festivals uh come scholarships. You know if a student makes the bystate band festival then colleges look at that student like oh wow they're pretty good we have a lack in that in that area in our department let's see if we can hook them up with a scholarship. Same thing with like the students that were here for state tonight. College band directors will go to state and they'll listen to the kids play and they take names
051and as soon as that festival's over, they call me like, "Hey, we need a tuba player. I saw you had a tuba player. Where are they going to school?" You know, do they have they already committed yet? Things like that. So, that could be another way that this could help our students out. And then obviously, we just want to provide um the best image that we can uh our band program for the whole community. We'd like to be that shining beacon that everybody can be proud of in town. You already are, too. Just think Well, we want to keep it up. We're shining. So, uh, next slide. So, really, what exactly would this person do? Um, at Graves, uh, they would teach band sectionals during the day, working on percussion fundamentals on snare, mallets, things
052like that. They begin work during sectionals and full band rehearsals on helping the students prepare even more technique for the various instruments that we use for concert band and jazz band. Visit Koolage if you have a jazz band. And again, uh jazz drum set is a completely different technique than concert band snare. And same thing with like jazz vibrophone. Totally different than concert mima or things like that. And then as far as the high school, they would help again sectional school band all of our school practices between marching band and percussion ensemble and jazz band and all of the offerings. So, they would definitely be able to help the entire district. It wouldn't just be for one school and I think that this would really level the playing field for our students. Let's encourage more
053kids to get in. Oh, absolutely. Sure. That's that's one of our hopes is that with the percussion specialist, the students will see more success and then more students will want to join that crew and be a professional and some of our scores have been affected. They have they have it's not all that just that it's important to know. Yeah. But to show like how prestige that is like most competition you go to there is a percussion category and they evaluate just that like they don't have like no this is being it's been showing up difference between I've got I've got charts I've got scores I've got all the scores from the last three years for let's say from our valent competition. I will just add also there's an equity piece here because many of your
054kids, not all but many of your kids that have become percussionists like myself did so because their families couldn't afford an instrument. That is very interesting. You mean if you look at like socioeconomics, they have if you look at our our program, I would say probably 75% of our professions are that demographic. Oh, that's incredible. And then you get to play these instruments and they're like $10,000 instrument. She's also a band member or student board member. Do you have any comments? I think it's a great opportunity especially for like a lot of my friends are in perussion. So I'm hoping for the next season that they'll be able to get that. I think it would be really cool for them. It would definitely help. Do you see less students getting scholarship. I can think of
055one student in the last 25 years. I can think of 25. Thank you so much. as you have there reasons why the position is needed which she discussed and you know approval is recommended presented you with some information and it's been something we really wanted to present to the meeting so yes any question what what does this cost the base salary of the first do they bring experiences the district depending we'll have to post it we don't depending on how they come in how many years they would bring to that um We decide where they are on that and you know yes and there are you know people retiring if we find ourselves I I was just wondering right so it depends on who it is how we take up to 10 years experience we
056don't know I move to approve second logistically speaking we're talking about serving the whole district we already kind brainstorm how a schedule I've got about four or five different schedules and and it can all vary based on start and times for the schools and I like it because again if you're going to really try to lead the profession part middle school high school start and we discussed that since Roberts has taken over uh the district implementation of the band program and I will tell you the concert where the three schools are there is a really great concert but just seeing the difference this year um with the fifth and sixth grade and how uh much improved I know co had something to do with it but they were very much improved it was wonderful to
057see that so I think for that opportunity and to allow those kids to be a part of that like a feeder system for sports like we have so I just think that it's a great thing that we've done so far just looking to improve I I will be the first to say that and my family would attest to this that I have absolutely no rhythm whatsoever This is an area that's totally outside of me, but I will tell you this community, this school district is so proud of the job that you have done uh that everyone all the students have done for this. And really, it it is a bright shining spot for us. And while I I don't think anybody up here wants to spend money, uh it's one thing that that you know,
058we made mistakes as a district years ago and taking our eye off the road when we were on top of our game and just let things slip by. This is I don't think we can let slip by. I just I don't believe that. We really need to make sure that we are continuing to improve, continuing to do everything we can and and the fact that there's been one student in 25 years that's gotten a scholarship and profession when you have so many others on the wind side that that are are doing well. I I just think this is something excited next year to see. Absolutely. We also are aware that students in band are better in classroom. Oh, they do really well. They have always been doing the job they need to do in the
059classroom as well. It's a great program. They do a great job. Miss's been a fantastic addition. We've been really fortunate and the kids adore her as well as we'd love to add to that. So, we have a motion on second roll call, please. Hi. None. I Brian I Stacy Hi, Vinnie. Hi, Kenogal. I Very good. Uh, item number 11. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll just We threw this in here. We weren't going to because it was there was a backup bid that I wasn't aware of. I apologize. I'm gonna I threw it back in thinking we get it going and I'm gonna read about it and I'll ask Mr. to do that. So, the Granite City Night Administration requests permission for the purchase of two golf carts. Um, uh, 48 volt electric golf carts for $7,500
060each. Um, I'm going to let Mr. Ry's been dealing with this. I'm going to have him speak to this. Yeah, we spoke in a previous session and we talked about the need for golf carts. We're we're currently our monitors are using we're down to two uh cards. They're not even I'm not really sure what they are, but we're down to two of them and they're about 12 years old. They don't even make replacement parts for them anymore. So, we wanted to get two this year for our monitors to help keep the campus safe. And then our goal is to get two more for next year. How old were those are those things they're using now? At least 10 to 12 years old. I know. Hard to get parts. Correct. We're having a difficult time. You
061can't get parts. I think they were purchased u 14 15. somewhere there. It was part of the environmental grant that we received. So, we bought the uh we bought the Taho, the propane shuttle and the uh carts, gyms, electrics, and we do use them. Did you Mr. Pew all the things that they use those for? Yeah, with the size of the high school campus obviously um having carts like that make a difference in monitoring the campus events and access also helping during events people get um you know handicap folks that are able to get to different places because of the size of campus. Um carts like that are very valuable on a daily basis at the high school. So golf carts will be delivered and at the GCHS auto shop and approval is recommended. You
062do have a list of the specifications on move second. Motion on a second. Any other discussion? It doesn't really impact my vote. I'm just curious where we buy Gateway Carts in St. Louis. I think it was okay. These are $7,500 each, which was much less than we thought. Yes. We have a motion on a second. Roll call, please. None. I Brian, I Stacy, I. Vinnie, hi. Canal. Hi. Currin. Hi. I. Now on to item number 11. Okay. Board to recommend other communications. We received three requests under the Freedom of Information Act during the period of December 722 through January 172. Uh all of the requests were handled by administration. Mr. Very good. Uh and that takes us up to executive session. And we have executive session tonight. All discussion. Yes. Short. Right. Uh, this will
063be under school safety item or exception number 2C8. At this time, I will entertain a motion to go into executive session. So move. Second. Second. All those in favor say I. No. Stamp it.