The Examiner U-46 News Feed
U-46 Board approves various expenses, report
By Seth Hancock
The Board of Education in School District U-46 unanimously approved expenditure items and a personnel report and workers’ compensation cases under its consent agenda on Monday, July 15.
The vote was 4-0 with board members John Devereux, Veronica Noland and Donna Smith absent.
The personnel report and workers’ compensation cases included five new positions (three new assistant principals and two para educators) while enrollment has continued to decline and is expected to for the foreseeable future. In the 2018-2019 school year, enrollment declined for the fourth straight year and U-46 has lost 1,915 total students since 2014 from 40,487 to 38,572 despite spending increasing nearly $100 million.
There were 14 expenditure proposals costing just under $4 million which received 11 minutes of presentation and discussion time when presented on June 17. There was no discussion prior to the vote.
The largest expenditure was with Computer Information Concepts ($1.1 million from the education fund) 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.
The proposal states: “Infinite Campus… is mainly used for attendance, discipline, gradebook, grading, state reporting, and scheduling.”
With Securly, the board approved a five-year contract costing $700,000 (education fund). The proposal states: “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.”
A renewal with CNA, from the tort fund, will go towards property and workers compensation excess insurance policies. It will cost $421,747 for property coverage, an increase from $358,640, and $262,748 for workers compensation excess coverage, a decrease from $271,812.
A contract renewal for five years was approved with Hoonuit for the district’s data warehouse. The cost ($423,014; education fund) is 1 percent higher from the 2018-2019 school year.
“Hoonuit’s product, My Data Zone, is the district's data warehouse where data is pulled from several sources… and analyzed,” the proposal states.
Six contract renewals, all from the education fund, were approved for various tests including two with the College Board costing $230,032 (increase from $184,556) for a free first Advanced Placement exam and $142,280 (up from $127,335) for Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Tests (PSATs), one with Northwest Evaluation Association costing $282,250 (down from $304,050) for MAP tests, one with Riverside Insights costing $62,975 (up from $52,665) for the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), a two-year contract costing $54,366 a year with Data Recognition Corporation for the LAS Links Español exam and one with LTI costing $40,000 (down from $52,000) for American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages exams.
A $123,750 expenditure was approved to purchase 253 desktop computers from DELL as was $41,313 with Mindsight to replace voice routers, $33,938 (up from $31,717) for human resources information system software renewal with Frontline Education and $29,993 with Lenovo to replace five servers. All will be paid for through the education fund.
Also unanimously approved, without discussion, was an itemized bills list totaling $13.7 million.
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