The Unit 5 School Board held a Special Board Meeting on Tuesday night in response to the recent passage of it’s tax referendum.
At the meeting, in light of that measure passing, Superintendent Kristen Weikle made recommendations that would allow, “the board to reinstate most of the reductions they approved on January 31st.”
Those restorations included but are not limited to: “fifth grade band and orchestra; all junior high clubs, activities and athletics; freshman only teams; (and) schedule three activities at the elementary which would be like music concerts (and) student council,” according to Weikle.
The board approved Weikle’s recommendations unanimously.
Board member Jeremy Dehaai pointed out that the board’s action should, “not be perceived by anyone that this is like a green light for the school district to spend money.” The district is going to continue to be fiscally conservative,” Dehaii said. “We are going to continue to look for ways to reduce costs.”
School board President Barry Hitchins added, “We want to make sure that this additional revenue that is provided by the referendum lasts as long as we can make it last.”
Eighth grade foreign language classes have not been reinstated at this time.
Weikle said, “What I would like us to do is take next year to really evaluate the best way to bring that back at the eighth grade level and make it acceptable to all our students who might have an interest.”
Hitchins stated, “Part of that was just the timing of today versus the start of school. There were a lot of logistical challenges that would have to be done between now and the beginning of school. But we also want to take a lot of time and look at how we offer that program and how we can do it more efficiently and how can we eliminate some of the access hurdles.”
Hitchins continued, “The model we used to have, if a student could not get transportation on their own to school, to the high schools, they could not take eighth grade foreign language. So we want to see how we can provide that opportunity to all students without things like transportation impacting them.
Electioneering
Weikle addressed electioneering claims by saying that, “An allegation was made that we investigated as a school district. And in the case of putting things in staff mailboxes we communicated with the unions right away. We communicated with administrators, which would be the proper thing to do, and let people know that’s not allowed.”
Other than that Weikle denied that there was any electioneering.
Hitchins said, “From my understanding the board and the administration is allowing the police departments and the other agencies who those complaints have been referred to, to pursue those complaints. We’re not involved with it because we do not want to interfere with any type of activity in those areas.