April Superintendent Newsletter
Winchester CUSD #1 Monthly Newsletter
March 29, 2019
Consolidated Elections will be held Tuesday, April 2nd across Illinois. Among the races locally will be the election of school board members. Three seats are open on the Winchester School Board. Three candidates - Celeste Lashmett, Bill Jacquot, and Dorinda Miller are running for the one open seat within the Winchester Township. Ron Coultas and Shanna Eddinger will fill the other two open seats.
April is testing month. 3rd-8th grade students will take the new Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR). Freshmen and Sophomores will take the PSAT and Juniors the SAT. Best effort and best of luck to all!
Our fifth emergency day will be made-up on Thursday, April 18th. This will be a regular day of school ahead of our four-day Easter Break. There will be no school on Friday, April 19th or Monday, April 22nd.
WGS teachers have all received a Chromebook through our REAP Grant. This will allow for better connectivity with the Google platform which will help improve teaching and learning. Chromebooks have also been purchased for the WHS Library replacing old HP laptops.
We have had Internet slowdown and stoppage during the month of March. We appreciate Illinois Electric Cooperative working to fix the problems as soon as possible. Norvin Adams, District Technology Coordinator, is still working on some internal issues. Fiber optic cabling has been run from WGS to the ELC to improve Internet speed.
Grading and rock have been added to the railroad road on the west edge of campus from Cross Street to the softball field. Rock has been added to the crossroads behind WGS and next to the baseball field. Rock was also added to the student parking lot on the west side of WHS.
Field Notice of Violations from our Health, Life, Safety visit have been addressed and responses to ROE1 have been completed.
The greenhouse is now completely built. The next step is to run electricity, water, and gas to the structure. It will also need to meet all health, life, safety requirements through the ROE.
We have three employees that have completed the tuition waiver for their children (4 total) for the 2019-20 school year. All attended Winchester Schools this year.
At our February board meeting the building principals received contract extensions through 2024, minimum salary increases of 2.5% each year, board paid health insurance, and 20 vacation days but with no accumulation. This is the same contract language approved for the new superintendent in December.
Central States Bus Sales will not be making us an offer to redo our bus lease this year. We are completing year 4 on a 5-year lease. In the past they have made an attractive offer to get out of the lease early. The downside is we will need to budget more for maintenance as the longer we have the buses the more issues we will have.
The following motions were approved at the March 12th School Board Meeting:
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Rental of gym by Emily’s Dance - May 14th
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Renewal of student insurance plan for FY20
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Renewal of IESA/IHSA memberships for FY20
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Use of fields for Little League
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Resolution of Non-Reemployment of Certified Staff - Kara Anne Nash
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Granted Tenure - Elena Moran-Cortes, Karen Rueter
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Re-Employed Non-Tenured Teachers for FY20 - Jayme Duncan Davis, Grant DeWitt, Tamaque Ator, Jodi Brown, Grace Pinkerton, Kenny Mayner, Adam Brockhouse, Sheila Wigger, Austin Wilson, Stacy Valentine, Tina Leonard, Amber Sichting, Amy Sutton, Claire Coonrod, Ryan Sichting, Carl Wicklander, Jacob Schumacher, Kalli Fuhler, Megan Hurrelbrink, Erin Studer, Dakota Beavers, Krista Kunz,
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Issued Reduction in Force Notifications - Aides: Tina Brown, Ann Jones, Jenna Lawson, Kessie Melanson; Drivers: Cory Suhre, Norvin Adams; LPN Aide: Dianne Potter; PT Custodian: John Peters; PT Cook: Jackie Blanton
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Issued Notice of Non-Reemployment Non-Tenured (for licensure) - Sami Killebrew, Tiphani Gregory
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Employed Lauren Reichert for FY20 (1st Grade Teacher)
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Coaches - WCC Golf - Nate Davis; WCC Cheer - Candy Miller; WGS Cheer - Brittany Peterson; WGS Track Volunteer - Chris Fuller; WCC Golf Volunteer - Jeff Davis
