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An earlier start to the school year with more breaks. Dist. #205 approves calendar in hopes of improving attendance

The District 205 School Board approved a new calendar for the 2023/24 school year this week. Board members considered two different calendars with only two glaring differences. One starts the year on Aug. 10 and includes a weeklong fall break. The other starts the year on Aug. 16 and does not include the fall break. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said that he was recommending the earlier start to the school year to combat learning loss better and to experiment and see if giving a fall break would help fight truancy. "We feel like this fall break may increase attendance if people have shorter times where they have to get to a break and they'll come to school more and we'll have better attendance," Dr. Asplund told the board on Monday. "We feel like it's worth a year-shot and if it doesn't go well then we say, 'okay, we tried that and it didn't work.' But we feel like it's something that is not that big of a departure from this current calendar." Asplund said staff members were split on the two calendars but were open to either one. Ultimately, the calendar committee recommended an earlier start date. Each quarter in the school year will be split by a week break. The first day of classes for students will be Aug. 10. Fall Break comes the week of Oct. 16-20. Winter break falls from Dec. 21-Jan. 5. Spring break is the week of April 1-5. And the last day of school is May 23.

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District 205 to consider more solar arrays for King and Silas Willard elementary schools

The District 205 Board of Education held off this week on adding more solar arrays to King and Silas elementary schools. The district had approved solar arrays for different schools in the district in recent years and has seen significant savings already. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said that conservatively speaking, the district has saved $172,421.89. These savings are seen with increased energy usage at the Galesburg Junior Senior High School building with the addition of air conditioning. Asplund presented the proposal to add an array to the ground behind King Elementary and to the rooftops of Silas Willard on Monday night. "Where we were getting 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, now it's at 5.5," Dr. Asplund told the board on Monday. "Other people are signing these at 7 [cents] because the cost of electricity – everything is going up. Inflation has made everything crazy." District 205 January personnel report: Who is coming, going within Galesburg schools? Asplund had told the board that electricity has almost tripled in the last year and currently is retailing for 11.3 cents a kilowatt-hour. A year ago it was 4.5 cents. The board had some reservations about the company behind the solar arrays, Clean Energy Design Group, due to how long it took to get the panels in the ground, secured, and turned on. Asplund said that while it was frustrating not getting the work done in a more timely fashion, he added that at least it has been done and the district is seeing savings. "I know other schools that aren't that far from us that have signed contacts with people two years ago that haven't even got anything into the ground. So, this company does put the solar array in and it does work. Is it perfect? No, but we are saving money." School board members held off on a decision until a more rigid contract was brought forward with hard dates and penalties for failure to follow through with the construction of the solar arrays.

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Dist. #205 exploring adding more solar arrays

The District 205 school board was given a breakdown of its electricity expenses since the approval of the solar energy agreement and the renovation work at buildings around the district. Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operation Jennifer Hamm told the board the district is seeing a savings of $79,772.83. These savings have been seen even after several buildings saw significant expansions from the district-wide building renovation project and the addition of air conditioning at King Elementary. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund told the board that the district is looking at other avenues to expand on solar energy. "We're in the preliminary stages but I'm talking to two different companies," Asplund said Monday night. "I want to see the feasibility of buying it rather than doing the PPA, the power purchase agreement. There are a lot of factors that go into that and we'll have to see how long our appetite is for payback on that. Obviously over time, if you own the solar panels, you will save money. It's just how long do want that to take? And, as they get cheaper, it's going to be easier to do that and have that return. The return on investment will be a lot shorter." Asplund said in 2014 when he was with a different district, he said the return was 24 years. But now, costs have gone down and the ROI is shorter. Asplund said he's working to get a quote for rooftop units at Silas Willard to determine if the initial investment in owning the panels is worth it or if it would be more cost effective for the district to enter into another PPA. He said he believed there could be more solar on the district's campuses if they could get competitive bids.

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Dist. #205 approves transfer of Churchill Jr. High to City of Galesburg

The District 205 Board on Monday approved the transfer of Churchill Junior High School to the City of Galesburg. The School Board last week approved the sale of Nielson Elementary School to the Galesburg Rescue Mission but didn't make any decision on Churchill, which is anticipated on being closed by the start of next year. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said the reason the district didn't take action on Churchill was so that additional language could be added giving them priority consideration if the city decided to gift or sell the Churchill property in the future. "The common comments from the board last Monday was we want to have the right, if the city decides at a later date they want to sell the building, gift the building, transfer the building, we want to at least have the right to decide if we want it back," said Asplund at the meeting. "That doesn't mean we have to take it. It just means we have the right of first refusal. Much like when we bought the 940 building (Northwoods Church)." Asplund said that after the approval, the city will then have to approve it. Should that happen, the deed will transfer to the city as of July 1, 2022. Churchill was closed with the expansion of Galesburg High School to accommodate junior high students as part of the district's building renovation work. On the subject of the renovation work, the 7-12 Learning Center building renovation project is nearing its end. Board member Maury Lyon, who is part of the building and grounds committee, gave the board and those in attendance an overview of how work is coming along at the high school. "Driving down Fremont Street, you see the brickwork on the band and chorus rooms going up pretty well. They say they'll be finished in two weeks which is very exciting. And the insides, the drywall, is going up on the indoor spaces. There shouldn't be any problems with having those spaces ready." Lyon said that the Hegg Performing Arts Center still has lots of work to do but said the board was told the renovation would be done by the middle of August. Work is also getting underway at the 940 Building which will be the home of Bright Futures.

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District 205 lowers asking price for Nielson School after no bidders

The District 205 Board of Education Monday night approved a resolution to sell Nielson Elementary School with a minimum bid of $735,000. This is $91,000 less than the minimum bid for the same resolution from September. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said there were three interested parties but that the $826,000 minimum bid was too high for them. "I will tell you, based on the conversations I had with the bidders who were interested and had tours, they were concerned about the number we originally put out," Asplund told the school board. "There are three bidders who I would consider to be serious that I know of. They are very much aware of the price. They are very much aware of the fact that we're trying to sell it." The process was to put the building up for sale through a sealed bid auction. With a minimum price set, bidders would submit their sealed bids to the district and the highest three bidders would be given the option, on the day the bids were unsealed, to up their bids in a closed auction. Asplund suggested keeping the process the same but setting a new minimum, something he said was one of three options the board could consider. "One is you could just do a flat option and go out and see whoever wants to bid on it no minimum or whatever. I don't recommend that. Another would be to go to a realtor and see if they can negotiate with somebody but they'd still have to go with the minimum you've stated before, that doesn't look very likely. Then you'd be paying a realtor, too. Or a third option, the one I'd recommend, is to set a new minimum and repeat the process. Because all we're really out is three consecutive advertisements in the newspaper." Board Member Rodney Phelps requested that other sources be utilized in promoting the sale of the facility.

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District 205 increases substitute and athletic event's workers pay

Galesburg School District 205 is upping the substitute teacher pay in the district going into the 2021/22 school year. The Board of Education on Monday approved the pay raise to $150 a day for subs. After working 10 days in the same assignment, their pay jumps again to almost $217 a day. Assistant Superintendent For Finance and Operation Jennifer Hamm told the board that the hope is to get more subs for the district. "We're hoping that by substantially increasing the substitute daily rate, which is still less than the daily per diem of a starting teacher, that we will be able to attract substitutes -- not only from this area, but that additional money will encourage people to potentially come here and drive a substantial difference to be able to sub for us." Superintendent Dr. John Asplund told the board that all area school districts pay $100 except for Monmouth-Roseville, which pays $110 and eventually increases to $130. Also getting a pay raise are workers at school athletic events. The board approved a wage increase in the hourly amount to $15-an-hour. Hamm told the board that the pay raises were last done in 2016. "We haven't increased those rates since 2016/17. They were based on $12-an-hour so that we could get a jump on the $15-an-hour minimum. And then also, we're experiencing the same things with athletic workers as we are in other areas finding it difficult at times to find athletic workers. We're hoping to encourage people to want to come out and work our events." In the last few years, there have been shortages in hiring in different areas. The board approved the pay raise which also takes effect for the 2021/22 school year.

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Masks will be required for District 205 at the start of the school year

Despite opposition from plenty of speakers at the start of last night's school board meeting, District 205 is following state mandates to require all individuals entering school buildings to wear masks at the start of the school year. Last week, Governor JB Pritzker directed all schools in the state to require everyone entering Illinois schools to wear a mask, regardless of their vaccination status. District Attorney Luke Feeney informed the board that all litigation that's come forward challenging the Governor's executive order authority has not led to any changes. "So far, none of those cases were successful for the presumptions that they brought. The governor's office has largely won all the litigations that's been brought regarding his authority under executive orders and mask mandates." Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said that after consulting with their insurance company, lawyers, and with LUDA -- the Large Unit District Association, there weren't any avenues the district could take to avoid masks. "At this point in time, the information we've gotten is that there isn't an option. But, we obviously have to stay dynamic in that process to see what we can do if given guidance." Students are slated to be back in classrooms on Thursday, September 2.

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District 205 school board gets update on return-to-learn plan

District 205 school board members were given an update on how the first two weeks of in-person schooling has gone at their meeting last night. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund told board members that since school has resumed, the district has had to exclude a great many students from school because of close contact tracing related to the Coronavirus. "But we're over 400 people we've had to exclude since we've been back in school the last two weeks," Asplund told the board Monday night. "So, we're trying to push against some of the reasons why we have to do it from [the Illinois Department of Public Health] but we're not getting a lot of flexibility." Additionally, 11 staff members have had to be excluded because of COVID protocol. With the fourth term right around the corner, Dr. Asplund told the board that a notice was sent to parents last week to try and determine who would be in-person learning and who would be remote learning for the fourth term. He said that the district is requiring parents, who are keeping their students learning remotely, to tell the district of that plan. Otherwise, the district was going to assume that students would be in-person to start the fourth term. "We want to make it as easy to be in-person as humanly possible. And so the only way you'd need to notify the school for fourth term is if you plan to be remote. And as of this morning, the number was 174 students who were going to be remote for fourth term." Asplund said he'd like to see more students back in-person as the weather gets warmer with more options for outdoor learning.

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District 205 temporarily switching to hybrid return-to-learn plan

January 26, 2021
Students at District 205 will be going back to some form of in-person starting at the beginning of the month.
Members of the Board of Education in a special meeting Tuesday night approved a return-to-learn plan that would see students in classrooms with a hybrid learning model for three weeks before the district would transition to fully in-person.
Starting Monday, February 1, students will be back in classrooms two days a week, split between a Monday/Tuesday group and a Thursday/Friday group, with remote learning taking place when students aren’t in classrooms during the week.
District Superintendent Dr. John Asplund told board members that the plan would run for three weeks and then on February 22, the district would transition to fully in-person, five days a week.

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205 opts to return kids to classrooms on February 1st

January 12, 2021
School board members at District 205 spent hours last night discussing and debating about the district’s return to learn plan.
Plans had previously been made to bring students back on January 19 but administrators presented a plan to instead bring them back on January 25 with a hybrid approach, where one group is in class Monday and Tuesdays while the other group is in class Thursday and Fridays and remote learning takes place the other days. School during these in-person days would be half days with students leaving with meals to take home so that teachers could turn their attention to helping students learning remotely.

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