001all right called a meeting to order it is 7 P.M welcome to the February edition of the Columbia school board meeting start with the roll call please here Tammy hi here Andrea Corey here Greg Meyer here Scott Middle Camp here favorite way to stand with me and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and indivisible with liberty awesome thank you all right welcome our audience both of you appreciate you joining us tonight do we have any public comments we're just gonna move right along here all right correspondence anything going around no correspondence it's gonna be a record meeting here all right we'll move right on to the consent agenda Mr squirt if you'd
002like to walk us through that well you've got your minutes and your reports um we do have some resignations Mary Beth Babcock is resigning from the uh drama advisor position I don't know how many years she has been here but it's been very very many um we also have a paraprofessional and a cook that have resigned we've got some Employments some of them are for this year and some of them will be for the upcoming year we are starting to bring you names for the upcoming year and we plan to have them all invited to a board meeting in August so that you can meet them but um we've got a sign language interpreter for next year we found that was a hard to fill position we've got two Eagle Zone positions which are also
003hard to fill but we're glad to get some high school students in here to to do that we also found a school psychologist we usually have two this year we've gone with just one because we weren't able to fill that position but now we've got another one for next year so we're back to having two which is a welcomed addition we have a leave of absence for our school social worker here at Parkview school and we wish her well during that leave and then we've got vacancies um High School and Middle School drama advisors open because Miss Babcock as I've said is is leaving the paraprofessional can be taken off that list because um that was actually filled with um Elizabeth trechenberg but we still need a cook I know we're hiring a cook but
004we still have more holes than we have people to fill with all that said the recommendation is for the board to accept the consent agenda as presented any questions Commons concerns suggestions discussion Lively crap okay maybe like to make a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented I'll make that motion thank you Scott doing your second Andrew seconds roll call please yes hi yes all right which cares unanimously we'll move on to our Communications reports and presentations the enrollment report is in your package something substance on that and then we'll go right on to our administrative reports start with our building report so I'll be talking about uh the high school um got uh three things to talk about here Columbia Eagles defeated Redbud to move on to the regional playoff at altoff Unfortunately
005they did not win that game um but they finished 20 and 11. um Mr Reeves thought that that only three teams had ever done that in the last 20 years uh 20 20 victories so I think that was quite an accomplishment by them um the boys basketball team defeated Roxanna um last week and then for their big senior night and they also defeated Freeburg uh this Tuesday um and uh their last famous of this regular season this tonight and they will be in the in the playoffs uh the um uh on that senior night our fabulous pep band and our cheer seniors were also recognized and honored in that bottom picture there you can see um the next slide uh that left hand picture is students from Regional High Schools demonstrated their talents in a
006variety of academic subjects uh for the academic challenge that was held at Southwest Illinois College the students took tests in math English chemistry physics biology engineering graphics and computer science and we took first place our team took first place they did a great job on the right uh in the middle there you've got two of our choir students who did a great job representing Colombia at the IL mea All-State honors choir and then in uh on the end there we've got our four uh January students of the month and our uh our word for uh January was caring so these students were all nominated by a teacher to represent uh caring at uh Columbia High School and then our final slide another big um great performance by one of our teams uh congratulations to the
007CHS cheer squad on an excellent trip to state championships they finished as the state runner-ups this year so second highest score they did great work that's all I have awesome thank you very much that's a lot I go on to our assistant superintendent reports so I'm actually going to start on this slide for some of my shout outs so obviously our Italian was great but I want to give a shout out to Scott Horner because he's not is he and I were staying down on the floor I'm waiting for awards that day he said I didn't say anything to anybody because I didn't want to jinx it but I've already contacted the police department the fire department I have the parade set up that like he had it all lined up um but with the
008sports side of him didn't want to jinx anything and tell anybody what was going on um but he just does that for you know for everything for our Athletics because of his organization his dedication to you know making Colombia the best it can be um you know I just wanted to give him a shout out for that um we had two of our employees selected for the 2023 those who Excel um through the state of Illinois so every year they select teachers and support staff in different categories so Monica Mize one of our kindergarten teachers was selected as one of the those who Excel Award winners for what she does in the classroom and Abby Miller who is our new Transportation secretary she has done an amazing job and an application was submitted on her
009behalf and she also was selected so they will both be awarded or honored in Springfield at an award in April there will be a dinner and they'll both get some awards while they're there but we are thrilled to have two of our own recognized at the state level for that um my next shout out you know typically I give individual shout outs but I just want to shout out our staff as a whole um so I went to the music trivia and we had several teachers that were at music trivia night I went to the PTA trivia and we clearly this is a picture from that night of all the four of the different schools um a lot of teachers represented and it just is so awesome to see how involved our teachers are in
010supporting not only the programs in our buildings but going out into the community and making sure that they're visible and that it's well known that they support our students outside of the classroom as well so I just can't say enough about how how great of a staff that we really do have here in Colombian and we're lucky to have all of them and so just kind of kind of thing earlier it's only going to continue to get busier as spring approaches but we are Eagleview is working on kindergarten registration so we're going to do kindergarten screening on May 19th and the 22nd so we're just trying to get the word out to anyone that will have kindergartners next year they just need to call the Eagle View office and get their little one's name on
011the list and then um Mrs Vinnie in the Eagle View staff will communicate with them about those screening dates um the graph up at the top so I had shared with you before that one of our PD days last month we did an ed Camp so I had asked for staff and teachers to present on something that they do well in their classrooms we had 21 staff members that stepped up and presented that day this is the result so after all of our PD um our staff has to take an evaluation of it so we can look at what's been going on and kind of gauge where we need to go next and so this graph the blue bars are those that strongly agree and this was questions like this will impact my instruction of
012students this was presented by people that were knowledgeable this had meaning to The District in my personal vision and so of those types of questions out of 120 responses 89 or more teachers answer that they strongly agreed with that and I think that just again says a lot about the quality of what our staff has here to offer but just really taking advantage of utilizing the staff that we have and share so that we don't just have pockets of Excellence we can be a district of excellence and so I in some of the comments I had a lot of people ask can we do this again you know I'll volunteer this time and so I think it was great and I'm grateful to those 21 people that took a chance stepped up made themselves vulnerable
013but have now got the ball rolling for some other people to do that as well and at the bottom I've been sharing with you um throughout this year some of our data and I haven't shared any of you data from Eagleview yet so this is the top set of uh four charts is the Eagle View the early numeracy battery that we give so it looks at several different math components the two darker versions so the first one and the third one are our our student scores the lighter one so the second and the fourth are the National Norms so that you can kind of see where our students compared so you can see in math the first chart was last year's the second one is this year's at this time so we have seen um
014a great amount of growth in our students performing well above that national average of students right now which is huge because these students that we have at Eagleview are you know a lot of our older students were affected by covid because they had to learn from home these are the kids that were brought home as babies or didn't even have a chance to start school because of covid and they're just now jumping in so that says a lot about what our teachers have done over there and then same with that bottom chart that's on that early literacy um so they're looking at letters sounds blends of words and all of that so not quite the same amount of growth compared to the National Norm but we are seeing that growth from last year compared to
015this year so in speaking with Mrs Vinnie and the teachers over there they are all on board about what can we do how can we keep pushing it this isn't good enough we want to be better and so I have several teachers from those buildings actually we offered up a PD for this summer it's a week-long PD and we offered it to K through five teachers and we have 22 teachers that are going to be attending that training but of those 22 17 of them are coming from our K through two grade levels and we have everybody from teachers that this is their second year of teaching to we have a teacher that only has two years left after this year that wants to be a part of it too so again it's just that
016constant giving and wanting to do the best so I could not be more proud of our district than where we stand right now and that's it for me unless you have any questions oh to our superintendent reports all right um I want to Echo some things that uh Mrs Smith just said you know the PTA had a wonderful turnout they raised a ton of money for the district and did the the um the ladies that that are in charge of that an organization of that putting on an event like that is just it's a lot of work and they do it without pay so that we can benefit from that and I I just want to say thank you to that I also want to say thank you to miss Smith because the PD and
017the the you know that's a focus that we've had here and the organization for that Ed Camp um there were some days where she was going nobody has jumped in yet and she didn't have to hit the bushes too hard but we had the 21 and it was that first time and I think people see that first time it's scary whenever you do something new and now it's going to get that ball rolling and it's gonna you're gonna see some wonderful things but the organization that goes behind that that Focus thank you for that because um that's good stuff this week weekend Joseph and the electric colored Dreamcoat I believe is going to be Miss uh Babcock swan song as she leaves the district after so many years you know people come here and they
018do so much for the kids and the kids benefit from it and it's just it's it's um Bittersweet you know there's good memories but there's you know change and evolutions of what's going this time of year you get reflective on that we are closing out this year getting ready for graduation and things of that nature as you'll see on the action items but we're also planning for next year the calendar and things of that nature um so things change things evolve things move on at the district office we've been updating our financial software it's been really good to clean up our account codes and organize some of the processes and procedures that we're going to go through uh personal time off will be paperless we're going to do a lot more of the purchase ordering
019streamlining those processes it's a lot of behind the scenes organization but our ladies have been doing a wonderful job with it and um it's gonna pay off in the end you know it's it's those things you organize it so that things can happen and and you can move forward so um I'm excited about this time of year we're talking about a lot of things from this year to next year and I too could not be prouder of where we're at so thank you all right well I'll move right on to our items for Action the first one is the approval of our 2023 to 2024 school calendar yes our school calendar we review this it's really I mean doing a school calendar it's kind of like Groundhog Day you've got the same number of days
020in the year you want to have half of them in the first semester half of them in the second semester a lot of discussions about little tweaks and whatnot um we have the association look at it we have the administration look at it after all of these eyes um the recommendation is to accept that or approve it as presented um I'll be honest any specific questions can go to Miss Smith but uh do we have any questions comments about the calendar questions [Music] okay would it be like to make a motion to approve the school calendar as presented okay Lisa do I have a second all in favor aye aye any opposed and abstentions all right motion carries next time for business and approval of our date and time for graduation yeah um we've been
021going over as I said last month uh trying to find the right date and time this year we are going to be hosting the sectionals and the super sectionals at our field and so that does affect our ability to set up the field for graduation with that being said we recommend that we graduate the class on Saturday May 13th at 6 PM rain date for this one would actually be inside it's at 6 p.m because the morning is a baseball tournament which we try to stay off of um and we're we would like the rain date to be inside instead of Sunday as we've done in the past because that's Mother's Day that is the second Saturday of this month and what we would like is in the future to go to the third uh
022the third week the third Saturday um I mean the third Sunday we want to do the third Sunday on a on a more regular basis go back to two o'clock with the rain date being inside Waterloo does theirs on the third Sunday at three o'clock so we won't be conflicting with that um but that's for next year this year we're focused on May 13th at 6 PM as our recommendation questions concerns comments really would like to make a motion to approve the graduation Take Time locations I'll make a motion and she beat you out I'll second Tammy the motion Adam seconded all in favor aye aye any opposed any extensions all right our last time for business the approval of our tax abatement resolution so this is one of those yearly things that we have
023to decide if we want to do or not it would be five hundred thousand dollars going toward bonded interest payments with upcoming construction I question whether or not we would want to do that at this time and instead save that for parking lot or other projects that could be done may I interpret yes okay so in say it more clearly for people are as smart as Mr Grote like me um basically we take this 500 000 and we pay off towards our bonds we did this board did a great job in reducing our bonds we're only paying one percent on our bonds so and of course everything is front loaded so at the end we're paying mostly principal our interest is almost non-existent we're going to be doing a high school project we're going to
024be doing a parking lot we hope so we're going to be re-obtaining or reissuing our bonds there's no way we're going to get bonds again at one percent like we have right now so basically what we're doing is we're paying off a one percent Bond and the next year we're going to get a bond probably three times as expensive so I think it's pretty foolish to to do it when we know this is coming down the bike so I my recommendation would be we we don't I'm all about abating taxes and you know our tax rate has gone down considerably we I think the board does a great job you know the the bonds for one uh re reducing those and and reissuing those at the one percent I think was a great move you
025know we we struck right when the at the bottom of the market and saved the district a lot of money and uh but I think this is another one of those financial things just doesn't make sense to do so anyone else have any comments or so the money that we would be paying off these bonds are paying down this debt we would have keeping reserves and we'd be using for construction correct because we have the construction projects we've pretty much approved the high school deal we're going to move forward with that so it is going to be money that we're just going to have to take out again so and the money does come from the county facility sales tax so it is limited to construction you can't do salaries or anything else with that
026it's restricted funds so correct so pretty much as I understand it if no one wants to make a motion to Abate this it just dies and we risk retain the money that is correct so would it be like to make a motion all right item dies fair enough okay that concludes our items for Action uh next we have our discussion items which is we kind of led into it with the facility study we are like almost done with the negotiations with Cobalt you guys have uh approved that last month we are just at the final stages of that um and then we'll be working with FGM Architects to start the planning process um and so we are moving forward on this it just is to get lawyers involved it starts to move a little slower
027we're in a slow spot right now Although our lawyer has been very responsive and uh has has done a great job looking after the interest of the board I will say yes I should not have put a jab against lawyers well their Lord's not Corey I'm sorry that's right prison company yes that's all I have for the facilities that you have anything I do not individual board member comments you guys have all been so Lively tonight I'm expecting all kinds of stuff here so anything I have one comment that part thank you to a lot of the administrative team the high school center of a few of us here we're at the Freshman preview night or whatever they call that last night um it was it was great it was really nice to kind of
028settle some nerves of our eighth graders that are going to be making that that next step into the big high school but also through all the groups and clubs and you know athletic groups that showed up to just kind of talk about whether what they offer um you know as the extracurriculars and the other things outside the classroom um you know and then having the three counselors come and give their information so it doesn't face to the to the name and some hyperlinks and I understand more info is coming out to the parents so just wanted to say thanks for that um it was a really well put together orientation night if you will so just appreciative of again people just doing things after hours and that that one extra step that makes the parents
029and kiddos feel a little bit more at ease anyone else where president's prerogative I attended the I had the pleasure of attending the PTA trivia night and uh I think it was impressive it was very very well run organized you can tell they spent a lot of time the administrators were up there and entertaining everybody and I just really ran smooth and we weren't near as smart as we thought we were so yeah no kind of it was a lot of fun and great cause so thank you held our own yeah exactly it was the other people at the table that drug us down I think we were not even you know middle of the pack but anyway but yeah thank you for all that put that together that was really nice event oh there's
030a ton of time all right executive session we have an executive session tonight no executive sessions we're just going to bypass that and then that'll also negate the actions out of the executive session so that pretty much concludes the meeting if anybody like to make a motion to adjourn and made a motion to Journey with a second one second let's go second hand all in favor aye any opposed perfect that concludes our meeting