June Superintendent Newsletter
Winchester CUSD #1 Monthly Newsletter
May 31, 2017
The Winchester School District completed another terrific school year last week. 36 Eighth Grade students participated in promotion ceremonies and 44 seniors became graduates of Winchester High School. We are very proud of our students and thankful for all the scholarship opportunities they received. Congratulations!
With the ending of another school year, we say “happy retirement” to Laura Dukett - WHS science teacher, Sonnie Evans - WGS custodian, and Rusty Monroe - WGS 5th grade teacher.
WGS was successfully emptied on May 30th & 31st! 30-40 volunteers helped move all classroom, closet, kitchen and office furnishings to 16 storage containers in the parking lot. What great help we had! On behalf of Winchester CUSD #1, we are so very grateful for your support! WGS will now be turned over to CTS Group and all their contractors. We expect to get the building back on August 11th with some early move-in starting August 1st.
The white house was demolished and the site was filled in with dirt left over from the sewer project on Elm Street last year. The intersection looks much better!
Per new state legislation, required samples of water were brought to Illinois EPA in Springfield for lead water testing at WGS. Results came back on April 28th. All water sources are good except the north hand sink in the kitchen. The initial draw reading was above 5 parts per billion (ppb) while the second draw was fine. This sink is not used for cooking, food washing, or drinking and lead is not absorbed into the skin during hand washing. Signs have been placed at this sink as well as required notification placed on our website.
Our School District Financial Profile score for FY16 is 3.10 on a 4.0 scale. Our designation is “review’ status after having a score of 2.75 in FY15 with an “early warning” status.
Energy.Me is our electrical energy supplier through September. We are moving to AEP Energy this fall which will save us almost $2,200 annually.
After getting an offer of $2,000 for Bus #11, we got an offer that we accepted for $3,000. Bus #11 is a 2002 77-passenger Bluebird.
The Illinois General Assembly has approved all school waivers for this spring. That means our tuition waiver for children of out-of-district employees was approved and goes into effect for the next 5 school years. We will now develop an application procedure for the board to review and approve.
The following motions were approved at the May 9th School Board Meeting:
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Partial payment to Laverdiere for drainage work
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WGS Project: door hardware - Savage Doorways, door installation - Weder Construction, painting of gym ceiling - Neff-Colvin (Fritsch)
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Changes to the district grading scale
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WHS Handbook changes for 2017-18
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Student insurance with Merkel
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Use of facilities: Summer Youth baseball/softball
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Amendment to agreement with TRCES (vocational co-op)
- Personnel: Resignation - Jeff Abell as teacher/coach; Employed - Ryan Sichting as Driver Ed/PE & WC head boys basketball coach, Adam Dutton as custodian, Ethan Hartley & Curtis Kilver as summer maintenance, Alex Ebbing as District A.D., Jeff Davis as WC golf coach; Re-employed Coaches - Brian Bettis as WC head girls basketball coach, Jason Likes as WGS head girls basketball coach, Karlee VanDeVelde as WC cheer coach; Volunteers - Dan Burk & Sean Williams as WC golf assistants
