001held Tuesday January 28th 2025 at 5:30 p.m. in the unit office conference room 500 north10 Street Heron Illinois 62948 if everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice Mrs Hastings if you would please call roll here here here Kelly Green here young here Dave here at this time we would recognize anybody who would like to address the board when recognized that person should give their name before making their comments statements are asked to be limited to five minutes in duration would anybody like to address the board at this time if not we'll move forward um we need a motion a second and a roll call vote to accept and
002approve items listed and not extracted from the consent agenda presented on January 28th so John hson yes yes yes yes yes I believe we have someone here to address our construction update is that correct cazer at Mitchell we talk this week um the we should be done with all the kitchen and well that back with the cafeteria area the kitchen supply people are back and they're installing sinks and stuff like that now the plumbing plumbers will we come back to install or actually hook everything up so they probably got i' say a week or so to get all that done finalize that part of it but as far as our part is the you guys can probably have it by the end of the week I'm going to try to get Steve in there to
003do it we'll start punch list go through we got meeting the exception of the outside of the building the outside of the building of course the roofers are talked to them today and they're coming back to do to measure all the the coping around the building as far as dried in it's completely dried in it's all in with the exception of the metal around the edges we did find one leak which they addressed that that was on the part that we just did on the existing roof right um that part like I said that's a big big hurdle to get that all done the uh CAF or the gymnasium half of it by Friday we'll have all the orange on so basically that we'll be completely done the other half probably by midweek will'll have
004it completely done because we're moving all the stuff that's bleachers and all that stuff from one side to the other to get it to where they can do all the work and get it taken care of so soon as that's done the all the goals and all that stuff will start going up I've already got scheduled for them to come in and start doing all that so here pretty quick we should be getting everything going B thing like we talked about is the floor driving on the outside on the east side they just started back today so they're able to get that going today good so we'll be able to get the windows in right I'm hoping by the first week okay get brown put on that so we can actually put flashing for the
005okay yeah so that's a big big big I'm just glad the weather F BR yeah the weather Froze that outside and weather K us the outside stuff but we were able to keep going on the inside yeah kitchen supplier they Shi stuff at the end of uh December 1 of January there was a few items that they did not have done yet and that's what we've been waiting on to finish up in the kitchen still countertops and sinks and stuff finally showed up today loers are supposed to be coming in I think tomorrow one what the installer the same to W them all up so we can actually start installing faucets and stuff like that it's actually a usable usable building to um to the district when once we've gone through and we've checked off
006everything covered punch list items on that cafeteria kitchen part we'll have a meeting next Thursday which is kind of where Brad's alluding to we could be um at that point in time ready to say we're close to letting the district into it if we find everything satisfactory and so from that is that uh is it envisioned that there would be any activity in the building at that point I probably wouldn't push right now to make that available space just because it's not a real natural transition time we'll probably look at like around Spring Break um just for a natural transition over to that cafeteria kitchen area I'll talk with Brad and Ryan a little bit more who Brad and Ryan are at the Junior High girls game tonight so um but we've talked about it
007and kind of staged and planned for it but yeah you gonna have any kind of ceremony or anything once we get the whole facility finished yeah absolutely we'll have a we'll have a open house ceremony kind of thing yeah absolutely yeah you bet schedule Ruben cutting yeah I am pushing to get the sidewalk done too I talked to him oh good thank you so he's trying to get back in here and get his guys back for everybody with the weather and stuff they all is that going to is that going to be refenced is that part of the design once the once the the back playground area yeah once the Landscaping is done is that going to be refenced or something we'll have everything I don't know if we haveing along the basketball goals there's
008one part of some area in the back where there's what three basketball courts yes so there's going to be fence between that and parking lot I don't think the East End is fenced I think it's just right there on that one spot to keep balls from going out in the parking lot is it going to be usable as the B field uh not not enough well we leveled it off quite I mean it's going to be pretty gradual but I you can play some catch but it's not like wide open ball field anymore we did cut it down almost two foot because with the parking lot when it went in yeah and once we got it graded in in the basketball goals there was going to be a twoof foot drop from what was there
009so we've actually got that cut down there's actually a yard drain now we actually put more parking so we where the gym and kitchen are we took that parking lot out obviously it's now building so what we tried to do is add some more parking back in on that backside so what would really be a grassy lot from the street all the way over to the existing building that square a third to half of that's going to be parking lot oh wow yeah thank you thank you thanks Brad moving on to adopt for the vision 2030 Mr Wilson yeah I talked last month about Vision 2030 um some of you are around for vision 2020 remember that that was instrumental piece and getting us our evidence-based funding formula in the State uh Vision 2030 has
010a lot of similar items um priority funding basically let's keep ebf going keep the Public Funding going for schools like it is and future focused learning um that's working on making sure our schools throughout the state and our state leaders are focused on getting students prepared for the future um keeping students safe getting high quality teachers retaining the high quality teachers um and then also part of that's the accountability system that goes along with that making sure the accountability system is something that's practical and easy to use um so it's just an offensive effort by school leaders throughout the state of Illinois to present um to the public and to our state government to say hey here's what we want to do as public schools so this uh board resolution is something that schools across
011the state are adopting just to show the support rally the support from throughout all pieces all corners of the state of Illinois so that's what we have tonight as adopt a board resolution to approve the support of the board for vision 2030 so you need any voting from us at this point in time I just need to adopt that resol yeah approve the adoption that resolution okay so we need a motion and a second to approve the resolution for vision Vision 2030 from Mr Wilson so move second yes yes yes yes yes her she didn't put that in there okay special reports U for our student and faculty uh starting with the prek the prek had a wonderful turnout for their Winter Wonderland program they had 160 people that attended that also they have six
012prek students that have perfect attendance for year to date and for the month of January so far they have 12 prek students with perfect attendance we want to say congratulations to Lila for being the terrific tiger for January um at the heron elementary school 468 out of 7 students have perfect attendance for December on December 19th and 20th families were invited to see the end of semester projects completed by the students and Mrs Jana Simmons and the music department organized a musical event for the heron elementary students from the group waveform um at the junior high school December 9th the junior high Bandon course was held a concert was held in Memorial Gym the core students went caroling and area nursing homes and assisted living facilities the dance team has twice received a qualifying score
013for their lyrical routine during Regional competition and has accepted an invitation to complete at the idta state finals on February 15th in Springfield and last but not least girls basketball on January 16th the girls basketball team won the sijhsaa region one championship against Carbondale the team also won their quarter final game in the state tournament play at Ren Lake College in overtime 38 to 37 over Hamilton County and they are playing right now against Mount Carmel at the state tournament so go Tigers and then at the high school the boys basketball team beat the Carterville lions in the championship game of the 2024 elor Holiday Tournament Jared staple was named to the all tournament team and Kyrie Lukens was named tournament MVP that was the fourth year in a row yes it was it's a
014four Pat um the Heron High School flag and dance teams will be competing at the Ida state competition in February boy bowling hosted The ihsa Regionals in place third they're headed to sectionals on January 22nd and then the wrestling team placed 11th out of 21 teams at the carai invite and the tiger wrestlers also participated in the carai JV tournament so congratulations to all all of our Tigers keep up the awesome work moving on to new business need a motion and a second and roll call vote to approve the 2025 High School graduation date for Saturday May 10th 2025 at 6 p.m. so moved yes yes John yes moving on to the district facilities Mr Wilson has some information for us a couple of new pieces well one's a little older one's a little bit
015newer um tiger Wellness Center we had bid that out last spring and it came in um well over $900,000 we held off on that because the grant only gave us about 320,000 the district was due to bid or put in about another 40,000 on that so that's $360,000 of money 900 something th000 was the bid we didn't feel like I didn't feel like it was a good idea to cover that Gap as a district for the tiger Wellness Center we rebid that project again just to we tweaked a few things we looked at some other options um it still came in about $950,000 was the bid for the tiger Wellness Center that came in uh almost two weeks ago so we still have the same amount of grant money currently that exists still have that
016big $600,000 gap what we're currently looking at is can we get some other Grant funds private donors to cover that distance between our money we currently have reserved in Grants and the bid amount we don't have that finalized yet I I don't have any recommendation for the board tonight my recommendation if we don't get this other funding I don't see how we can move forward with the tiger Wellness Center um that's just putting that out there tonight so is that the is that um the grant does that presuppose a U or does it contemplate a a physical building being Ed for that purpose or is it something where it could be leased in other words we could rent or lease we have to have a new facility for that we we've examined like repurposing spaces
017and projects and doing other items kind of what you're um suggesting and we can't do that they want a new structure to be built is the way the Dr Grant which is the original Grant piece we applied for um how that all comes together okay any other questions for Mr Wilson the time frame that the time frame for like at some point you would be able to use well we we have a deadline so I'm meeting with the Dr Grant people tomorrow to have Dr Grant people tomorrow to have a discussion about our timeline because we're we should have this building done in a year from now we're going to meet tomorrow and see if we can get get them to give us an extension to allow us some more time to try to secure
018some more private funding for it um that's our goal and really doc by this T at the next board meeting we'll have to know what we're doing or our time will be up so um and again just to um to clarify is it is that well defined the new structure so it could not be a renovation of an existing structure it's got to be new building however I will point out that it is a federal fund right now and we on every Federal grant right yeah president Trump put Pauls on every Federal grant today which that does impact us everybody believes it's a shortterm type of thing 90 days right now right that's what we are being told but what is that message a little deeper we could probably get into some um Weeds on
019that that it's just the first step of a bigger push to not allocate the money the way they do now from the FED straight to the schools that flow through the state which is kind of a bad deal because you know if it going to go through the state they're going to charge shipping and handling and that's probably gonna be 8 to 10% and a little bit more will come off that instead of going to schools it'll stop at the state level um so more remains to be seen on that but yeah that is a Federal grant that is on pause so that might play into our hands a little better right now since that is a the Dr as a Federal grant but yeah so basically just wanted to update everybody we did rebid
020it we tweaked everything's coming back the same it just is what it is with all the Mechanical plumbing and everything that's going into that building um that is seems to be the price tag it wasn't a fluke last time um well see the reason for that was did I recall that it had some there was some work on that was going to inflate the cost is did I there was a sewer line that we thought maybe was going to be really if we could get it from being over a current sewer line and having to move that sewer line that we would save but it when we looked at other options it wasn't so much that that was the cost it was just the the the facility itself is just where the money is at
021yeah it it would have saved us a little bit but when you try to move it another places and and reconfigure it there were other issues we ran into so it really just didn't work out yeah yeah we explored some different options last fall on it which is why it took a few months to read that it would be interesting if we were even close but that seems like a gap that's so substantial if it's going to require and there's no material no way that we're going to be able to you know I don't see the district actually poning up the Gap just to no sir it'll all be private donations funded from other um if it is if it is to happen if it is to happen correct yes I could not recommend that
022to the board no for sure for sure that's a lot of organization if that thing comes through and it could be I I don't know if it's going to be worth the money even if we Pony from the Personnel standpoint we won't have to run I know that yeah but you're still you're going to have to have transportation from the school to there for the kids from all from all four schools that won't be on us that that will all be on the um shie Health who is the will be the I'm just talking about taking kids out of class and we won't be doing that that will well I know but it's still our kids coming out of the class well just the same that their parents would come and pick them up to
023take them to the doctor now we would have the ability to do that within the district and it's it's the same kind of stuff we're already dealing with it's just would be transporting them to a district facility um which might actually improve some things is it GNA is it going to cost the district any additional money to continue to pursue this I know we're sunk into a 40,000 I think yeah no I mean we're we're at at this point in time we're where where we are what we've put into it that's where we will be yes as far as investigating planning architect Cal fees things like that yeah Val would you like you wanting to share something else along those lines so in reference to the transportation actually we have right now our admin has
024to leave the building to students back home parents can't pick up students that are SI so this is actually going to help benefit them and we won't have ad Le because shy help them take step up and then take that student home you have the transportation the second element of that is safety you have cameras and vehicles that have car Center established it's not Personnel it's not our personal vehicles that are involved accident happens with that student it's not our personal vehicle that's being used it's actually shy health and the shy Health employee so that's one aspect um two we have resho a federal or some private funding we won't know until 30 days out it's already been requested um an additional funding there will be some additional funding because we do have architectural fees
025that have to come through that we haven't paid yet but on top of that there's the um additional fee that we had to use for using greater Egypt which is so sha e Health are they completely liable insurance-wise for all those students because they are they have taken the student from our school district and they have where are they getting their money through a grant they get their money from another grant that we cannot get so on their element they get their their money from their Federal Grant in addition to once that sustainability element comes in which is insurance billing all of that that pays for them so they can maintain it they just need that initial funding from their Grant so they're already in the process of our end was just making sure that
026there was a building available that is only our just to followup U we're we're under the impression that $40,000 from District funds have been appropriated to to just kind of develop the proposal to this point is it are you saying that some of those additional bills or invoices just that have haven't been or they already calculated into that $40,000 Fe so we're actually at $60,000 and that's to cover architectural fees and that was just architectural of the first bid we are a little bit over that with the second bid in addition to that we also have to pay greater Egypt because originally greater Egypt would have came out of this funding that we would have never had to pay but if we deny the money then we have to come up with that money and
027how much is that it's $7,150 so 67,000 total is basically exposure right now just some cost is that right give or take I mean not including labor and all the other yes yeah part around but 67 oh well uh don't want to do it if you don't have to but would be great to have but I mean that yeah there's a lot of over half a million dollars to spend of your own money that's a lot of money over that right yeah another another piece looking at District facilities is this unit office um we've known for a while we've had some roof fish Tuesday really came to light in this last few weeks with the ice that sat on the roof and melted and opened up new showers in the building that we weren't planning
028on Cassie's office has been a a just a constant SE it's been a leak you got to keep in mind it's coming through the roof coming through the second floor and then coming into Cassie's office there's other spots throughout the building um Mr harlo over there we've got one so if if you look at the building envelope in itself it's a very very much leak happy um to replace the roof we're estimating it's gu estimating at least $300,000 to get a new roof on the entire place um that's just a starting point there's a lot of other things that need to be addressed from just a you know the floors have no insulation in them the freezing um the windows are very poor throughout the building we probably pump a lot of air just right
029through this building because of the inefficiency of that um another area concern is the gym uh that the gym rof alone probably is going to run us somewhere in the neighborhood of $115,000 just to get that um up to par and the fac that actual gym space in itself has a lot of storage potential um spending that kind of money on that facility I don't know if that's the wisest idea um not looking for any answers tonight just kind of starting to paint a picture of we are going to have to make somec decisions about Roofing we can PEC maill the roof out let's just say we did this section of the roof and it's 30,000 we did the office section of the roof there's maybe another 50,000 so there's some different opt options that
030we can look at um I've I've worked with Steve Sims uh he's brought in a couple Structural Engineers and otherwise we've done some walkthroughs done some conversations he's getting some more information together for me on possibilities scenarios what it looks like um but we are probably sooner than later have to make a decision are we just going to start repairing roofs here at the minimum um this facility is not one we just want to bulldo the whole thing down because that's not what I'm after um maybe maybe the gym get that gone yeah um I could build some storage much more much better than what the gym is for are there I'm sorry to interrupt are there any um talking about grants are there any grants that might be available for purposes of repurposing some
031of the facility because this is uh you're saying the bones this has got good bones I it's got good structure um that's probably a little harder to come by I'm not going to say never because I'm not deep in Grant world like Val is and she probably has something she's thought of um but typically speaking just for repurposing maybe because it's a historical building maybe we could get into something like that City that requ else to do that not usal very we have to look for that Capital grant for various projects we have it's just not readily available typically speaking because we also don't have students here you know it's it's it's an office we possibly go ahead Mr B no I say really it's hard I mean it's it's hard to say let's put
032money into the unit office when we have student needs I mean that's always something but we're also at a point where we've got to make some decisions about this office there had been at one point with discussion about um the district doing its own special ed we have classroom space up there I mean you you do have usable space up there for classroom now we're already we've already uh uh made the determination for the preschool and I totally get that we we we made the the pitch with that but there's plenty of usable space now if we're going to talk about um uh investing and I guess what I'm saying is I I don't necessarily think that additional money should be spent on this building unless you really know if you're going to get your
033return on it even if it's a roof you and that's what we're asking for right now from engineers and such is the return on investment is that something that's worth it and then possibilities and scenarios like what else could we use this space for in because there is a lot of space here in addition to what its current use is and I think you got to draw that out at least have some concept of the operation of what you would Envision it use you know and and that's the conversations that Steve and I have had um you know just recently and he just need some time to work on but again not just starting to paint that picture and I'd welcome a sit down conversation Comm we have a building committee right I don't we
034yes I'm sure there is one I'm not sure who it is right now it's been a minute it's been a minute since we've yeah visited that should be like a plant property and Equipment yeah but I'll continue to get information to you on that and if you want to come sit down talk with me about ideas like you know we walked through earlier tonight just have conversation that's great that's what I'm looking for so just wanted to put that out there tonight no no no action nothing on that's all I have on facilities on the screen okay any other questions for Mr Wilson in that regard if not need a motion second and a roll call vote to close the meeting in accordance with section 122a of the open meetings act citing the following exceptions
035as containing in one in section 122c to discuss student disciplinary cases adopt closed minutes discuss appointment employment compensation discipline performance evaluation and dismissal of specific employees and to discuss litigations moved second young yes yes John hson yesy Green yes yes second yes Steve Young yes John Hudson yes Daniel K yes Kelly Green yes Dave yes need a motion a second and a roll call vote to adopt the closed minutes of the meeting held December 17th 2024 so move second [Music] yes yes okay yes we need a motion a second and a roll call vote to approve the following personal Personnel recommendations as presented for resignation Whitney Williams as a reading aid for Northside Primary Center for employment Madison lad as a reading aid for the elementary school Riley krosi as an assistant boy track coach
036for the high school Jennifer Dickerson as the attendant secretary for the high school elec aldre aletti as a stting for the district and vacancies reading a to be posted for Northside Primary Center mov yes yes need a motion a second and a roll call vote to accept the superintendent evaluation as presented moved second yes yes yes yes yes we need a motion a second and rollal vote to approve the substitute pay increase as presented sub moved yes johnon yes KY Green yes yes yes yes we need a motion a second and a roll call vote to adjourn until the next regular meeting of the Board of Education scheduled for Tuesday February 25th 2025 at 5:30 p.m. in the unit office conference room 500 North 10th Street here in Illinois yes yes yes