The Examiner U-46 News Feed
Multiple proposals set for Dist. U-46 approval
By Seth Hancock
The Board of Education in School District U-46 is set to vote on several expenditure items at its upcoming meeting on Monday, July 15. The items were presented on June 17.
There were 14 proposals costing just under $4 million which took 11 minutes to present and discuss.
The largest item is $1.1 million, from the education fund if approved, with Computer Information Concepts for a three-year contract renewal of the district’s student information system Infinite Campus. The contract is a 9 percent increase from the previous three-year agreement.
Board member Melissa Owens asked if there have been upgrades to the application and “are they adding any additional things of value into the program?”
Laura Macias, director of information services, said: “We did a couple of more components to it, and it really saved us to do a three-year with the additional components to it.”
Macias added regarding apps that “they do upgrades and improvements constantly, and we have access to that.”
With Securly, the district is proposing a five-year contract costing $700,000 (education fund).
In 2018, the district began a trial of Securly 24/7 software and this agreement adds Securly anywhere and Chrome tool according to the proposal which states: “Securly has proven solutions that meet the internet dangers students are facing today. With web filtering, cyberbullying monitoring, and self-harm alerts, Securly provides the district the eyes and the ears needed to maintain safety cyber-monitoring at all times.”
The district is asking to renew its property and workers compensation excess insurance policies with CNA costing $421,747 for property coverage, an increase from $358,640, and $262,748 for workers compensation excess coverage, a decrease from $271,812, from the tort fund.
Sue Kerr, the board’s president, asked “we’re self-insured to a point and then this covers beyond that,” to which Beth Berg, coordinator of employee benefits said: “For our workers comp, yes.” The workers comp portion covers individual claims over $1 million, and U-46 has an option to lower its self-insured retention to $750,000.
A five-year contract renewal with Hoonuit would cost $423,014 (education fund) for My Data Zone, the district’s data warehouse. The cost is 1 percent higher from the 2018-2019 school year.
Costing $282,250 (education fund), the district is seeking a contract renewal with Northwest Evaluation Association for MAP testing of second through eighth graders and select students at other grades. The cost is down from $304,050.
Two contract renewals with the College Board, from the education fund, are being proposed. They include $230,032 (increase from $184,556) for a free first Advanced Placement exam for every student choosing to take the test, and $142,280 (up from $127,335) for Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Tests, or PSATs.
The district is asking for $123,750 (education fund) to purchase 253 desktop computers from DELL. Previously, U-46 purchased desktop computers to replace 92 percent of those still using Windows 7.
“We did a purchase before and we were very conservative, so we just needed those couple hundred extra to fully replace all the Windows 7,” Macias said. “But we did a big purchase… of 2,700 previously but were very conservative.”
With Riverside Insights, the district is asking for a contract renewal costing $62,975 (up from $52,665) from the education fund for the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) which, according to the proposal, is “designed to measure a student’s learned reasoning abilities in the three areas most linked to academic success in school: verbal, quantitative and nonverbal. CogAT screening is widely used as one of the measures for gifted identification. CogAT provides information that is not measured in other academic tests.”
The proposal states that more students will take the test, and Kerr asked: “Are we just offering it to more kids?” Laura Hill, director of assessment and accountability, said: “It was just our enrollment increased in the particular grades and then how many students for the academy, that’s what actually had the increase on it.”
A two-year contract costing $54,366 a year (education fund) with Data Recognition Corporation would go towards the LAS Links Español exam for dual language students.
The district is asking for $41,313 (education fund) to go to Mindsight to replace voice routers at U-46’s central office and Kenyon Woods Middle School in South Elgin.
The voice routers are a key component of the phone system that handles all voice and media traffic,” the proposal states.
A contract renewal with LTI costs $40,000 (down from $52,000) for American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages exams which allow students to seek a state seal of biliteracy.
With Frontline Education, the district is asking for $33,938 (education fund) for a software contract renewal for the district’s human resources information system. The cost is up from $31,717.
Owens asked if there would be a discount if the district entered into a multi-year contract to which Bruce Phelps, senior business official, said: “We haven’t looked into that yet. Ann (Chan, assistant superintendent of human resources) wants to look a little deeper into the software we’re using since she’s new to the district, and then we’re going to look at a longer-year term agreement possibly with this company or another.”
The district is also asking for $29,993 (education fund) to replace five servers from Lenovo.
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