The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Joy Swearingen, Quill Correspondent
The Illini West High School board took two steps meant to help residents of the district stay informed on board action.
At their regular meeting, Wednesday, July 21, the board amended the year's meeting schedule, changing the location of two meetings. The October 20 meeting will be held at the LaHarpe Elementary School. The April 20, 2022, meeting will be held at the Dallas City Elementary School. Regular meetings begin at 7 p.m.
Superintendent Jay Harnack said the move should help communication for the whole district.
"One of the things that I heard when I interviewed was a concern to increase communication with the stakeholders and develop greater transparency for what the board does, and to provide more opportunities for people to participate," Harnack said.
To that end, the board approved buying BoardDocs, board meeting management system. Harnack explained that the system started as a way to manage board meetings.
"They have become so many other things. Any member of the public can log in to the site," he said.
Video links to board meetings may be set up via Zoom or live streaming. It pulls together a wide selection of past and current school information that is accessible to anyone in the district, not just administrators and board members.
For example, agendas of board meetings are listed, and within those, links to supplemental materials about the agenda items.
For the administration, accessing information and history of board action is much quicker. Options for drafts and templates help with preparing agendas and materials. He noted this is particularly helpful in updating large board policy books.
Back to school
As school nears, Illini West freshman orientation is set for Tuesday, Aug. 10, 6 to 7 p.m. Open house will be held on Aug. 16, 5 to 7 p.m., which is the first day of teacher in-service. Classes begin Aug. 18.
Looking ahead to the start of classes, the board approved a "Return to School Plan," drafted by Harnack and the district attorney, based on guidance issued by CDC, IDPH and ISBE.
"The major takeaway is a real priority assuring that in-person learning occurs," Harnack said. "The follow-up on that was an extensive amount of work by the school attorney."
The result was a plan of covid measures and mitigation strategies for returning to in-person learning under local control.
"Our attorney has sent a number of guidelines, particularly those that would give us flexibility to adapt to changes in positivity rates for dealing with covid in the community and at school," Harnack said.
Students will attend in-person classes all day, every day. Afterschool tutoring will be available. Remote instruction will only be used for non-vaccinated or vaccine ineligible students who are under quarantine as directed by the health department.
The plan calls for Harnack to monitor local positivity rates each week to determine if the district remains in the current low risk level, or increases to medium or substantial risk. Harnack can make adjustments in procedures as long as the situation remains within the plan.
"The goal is to make it as simple as possible to retain in-person learning," Harnack said.
With all three risk levels, masks are recommended, but not required. However, all students must wear masks while riding buses. The plan outlines a number of protocols for social distancing, hand washing, cleaning, quarantining, activities, and more.
Quarantines, testing and contact tracing will remain in the hands of the Hancock County Health Department.
The full plan is available in a hard copy and will be posted on the school website. The health department is holding a meeting for county school officials to go over what the local control directives mean to schools.
Other news
Principal Jim Short said that 21 students took part in the in-person summer credit recovery sessions during June for classes failed in the 2020-21 school year. Eleven students completed at least one course for credit. The district gained approval from the regional education office to continue the classes on-line during July. Six students are still working for credit recovery. Their work on computers can be monitored by Short, guidance counselor, Ryan Bliss, and director of student services, Grant Surprenant.
The board authorized Harnack to develop a tentative budget, and approved a budget hearing at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 15. Harnack was authorized to spend district funds prior to final adoption of the budget.
In other business, the board: