The District 64 Board of Education held its monthly regular meeting online on Monday, June 22. Using video conferencing, the Board honored student winners of the Judith Snow Awards, hired an assistant principal at Franklin Elementary and took its first look at the 2020-21 budget.
Highlights include:
- The Board took its first of multiple steps in the 2020-21 budget process as it reviewed the first draft of both the revenue and expenditure budgets on Monday. This working budget will be considered for approval as a tentative budget in July with the goal of ultimately being approved in its final form by the Board in September. While there are still many unknowns about the impact of COVID-19, Luann Kolstad, Chief Business Officer for District 64 warned that expenditures could increase as much as $2 million because of the pandemic.
- In the latest update of the remote learning program, Lori Lopez, Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning, reported results of a recent parent survey, noting three staff committees have already started on possible improvements moving forward. Besides professional development offerings highlighting technology this summer, administrators, and teachers will develop a plan for returning to school and/or remote learning in the 2020-21 school year with three goals in mind: an improved communication platform; more specific expectations; an organized pickup of school materials.
- The Board voted to spend $78,167 on a switch infrastructure refresh plan, a four-year maintenance plan to support technology equipment, reliability and sustainability. The last update was four years ago. The expenditure will also update the District 64 power backup system to increase uptime for its Voice Over IP system. This is being purchased at a discounted rate through the FCC’s E-Rate program.