The Examiner U-46 News Feed

U-46 Board slated to vote on myriad of expenses

By Seth Hancock
  The Board of Education in School District U-46 is set to vote on $261,054 in expenditure items at its upcoming meeting on Monday, June 5. The items were presented on May 15.
  Included is $129,500 with Corwin, coming from the education fund and reimbursed through federal grants if approved, to hire Doug Fisher as a curriculum consultant. It is for a revision to the middle school curriculum as the district prepares to transition to sixth grade moving to that level from elementary.
  The proposal states that “we determined that an expert consultant to guide the work would support the curriculum writing teams to ensure alignment with our U-46 Rising work which would include rigorous tasks, common formative and summative assessments, learning targets, language targets, and success criteria. The expert consultant would also help achieve our goal of developing thriving adolescents as defined by the MS Transition Committee as well as meet the needs of all our students by integrating social and emotional learning.”
  Costing $72,000 (education fund), the district is seeking a community engagement and communications consultant through Creative Entourage to “assist with ongoing community engagement to bring the community’s vision to life” related to facility updates.
  The board will vote on renewing membership with the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) costing $33,240 (education fund). The IASB is a taxpayer funded lobbyist group for government-run schools.
  With Estate Enterprises, the district is asking for $26,314 (operations and maintenance fund for district wide herbicide application.
  “School District U-46 has nearly 400 acres of grass on its properties and requires a contractor spraying specific herbicides to keep weeds to a minimum,” the proposal states.
  The board will also vote on the 2024-2025 school calendar as well as membership with the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), which governs high school athletics. There is no fee to the IHSA membership.