September Superintendent Newsletter
Winchester CUSD #1 Monthly Newsletter
August 31, 2018
We have filled the four open positions with official hire at the September Board Meeting. They are: Tiphani Gregory - WHS Special Needs Teacher, Patricia Robbins - WJH Special Needs Aide, Amy McClenning - Cook, Diane Potter - 1on1 LPN Aide. Tiphani started on August 16th. Patricia started Aug. 27th. Amy has already been subbing in the kitchen. Diane will not start until September 17th.
Last Friday was our 6th day of school and the date ISBE will record our starting attendance for the year. WGS has a total of 389 students and WHS has 188 with 7 going to programs outside our school.
Our appeal to our FY19 Preschool For All Grant has been denied by ISBE. We were approved at $130,681.00 which is almost exactly half of the $262,200.00 we received in FY18. Instead of two full-day classes we are offering one full-day and two half-day classes this year. This change was due to a waiting list of 9-10 students. So instead of serving 40 students we can now serve up to 60 students.
Our 2018 REAP Grant Award Notification came last week. We are receiving $25,438.00. This is federal money that we put toward technology. It is tied to our Title I program so it has to be spent at WGS.
Our FY19 District Title I Plan has been approved. Our Title I Grant is for $112,769.00 this year.
Our BC/BS health insurance premium for FY19 has an overall decrease of .53%.
With the Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court ruling members of our IFT unions must now authorize the deduction of fair share dues from payroll for the union. An employees must put in a written request to the union if they desire to not have fair share dues withdrawn from their checks.
A recent ISBE report on administrative costs per pupil ranking has us in quartile 3 with 1 being the highest and 4 the lowest. We are at 236 out of 385 unit school districts in administrative costs per pupil.
The WHS LED Lighting Project has been completed. There will still be a walkthrough with Ameren reps sometime soon.
The Cougar Boosters and the Winchester Sports Boosters have voted to join together as one booster group.
The following motions were approved at the August 14th School Board Meeting:
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Reciprocal agreement with City of Winchester
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Use of facilities by Winchester JFL
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Resignations from: Lori Howard - cook, John Borgens - aide, Melissa Moore - LPN Aide, Trish Bryant - teacher, Mark Dyer - teacher, and Celeste Lashmett - counselor
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Employment of Ann Jones - certified aide and Erin Studer - special needs teacher
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FY19 Stipend List
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Authorized administration to fill remaining FY19 vacancies
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FY19 administrative salary increases for Denny Vortman, Andy Stumpf, Becky Lashmett, and Angie Slagle
