BOE Monthly Meeting Summary

The Litchfield Community Unit School District #12 Board of Education met on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, in the Kilton Fine Arts Center at the Unit Office for its monthly board meeting.

These are not the official meeting minutes and do not include every detail from the meeting; instead, they are a summary to assist the Purple Panther community. Once the board approves them, the official minutes can be found on the LCUSD #12 Board of Education Minutes page on the website.

ILMEA All-State Musicians

The Illinois Music Educators Association (ILMEA) organizes music festivals in its various districts. Students must prepare and submit a rigorous audition that includes singing (chorus) or playing (band and orchestra) various musical skills and selections from difficult music on their own. The top students from each ILMEA district are selected for district-wide festivals. Litchfield is in ILMEA District 5, where we are the southern and western most point. District 5 stretches to the Illinois/Indiana Border and goes as far north as Macon County. After the district-level festivals are completed, the top musicians from each district festival are selected for All-State Festival Ensembles. There are two levels of bands, choirs, orchestras, and instrumental and vocal jazz groups: the All-State ensembles and the Honors All-State ensembles. The division between the Honors All-State ensembles and All-State ensembles is based on audition scores, with the top scorers of all the All-State musicians going into the Honors groups. In our district, it is often the top 6-8 students on each voice part who are selected for the All-State Choral ensembles. This is the highest award a high school musician can achieve in Illinois.

Our All-State Musicians are:

Gretchen Heigert (sophomore) - Gretchen sings Alto 1; this is her 2nd time being selected for the All-State Chorus

Clayton Logsdon (senior) - Clayton sings Bass 1; this is his 1st time being selected for the All-State Chorus

Sydney Weatherford (sophomore) - Sydney sings Soprano 1; this is her 2nd time being selected for the All-State Chorus

Camron Zumwalt (sophomore) - Camron sings Tenor 2; this is his 2nd time being selected for the All-State Chorus

Our Honors All-State Musicians are:

Avarey Fetter (senior) - Ava sings soprano 1; this is her 2nd time being selected for the Honors All-State Chorus

Lukus Middleton (senior) - Lukus sings Bass 2; this is his 3rd time being selected for the Honors All-State Chorus. In addition to being selected for the Honors Chorus, Lukus was also one of the top 2 auditioners among Bass 2s and was given the opportunity to audition to sing the National Anthem at state-level sporting events.

These musicians will represent our ILMEA District and Litchfield CUSD 12 at the ILMEA All-State Music Festival in Peoria, IL, from January 29th - February 1st. While there, they will rehearse with other All-State caliber students from around the state and listen to incredible ensembles and compositions in the evenings. All the rehearsals will culminate in concerts on the afternoon of February 1st at the Peoria Civic Center.

FOIA Requests

This month, we have had five FOIA requests. SmartProcure submitted a commercial FOIA request for general purchasing records for the last 6 months. This is a regular request. Another was a regular request regarding upcoming TRS retirements from the Illinois Retired Teachers Association. The other three requests were from a community member and were related to specific employee salary and benefit information, SCI enrollment information, and history of real estate purchased.

Sports/Activities Update

LHS: We are in the midst of the Rick McGraw Memorial Tournament this week. If you have time come and watch a game or two. Last night, we played Civic Memorial of Bethalto.

LHS also has 3 high school wrestlers who have been recognized and nominated by the State Journal-Register as the top wrestlers in the Springfield area for 2024-25. The online voting is open until January 18th. The wrestlers are Rilynn Younker, Vincent Moore, and Braxton Kieffer.

The annual Rich Lovellette Wrestling Tournament will take place at LHS on January 31st and February 1st. LHS will also host a boys wrestling regional on Saturday, February 8th in Simmons Gym.

Our LHS competitive cheer team competed in its first-ever event on Saturday, January 18th, at Mater Dei High School. Coach Murphy was incredibly proud of the girls and their performance.

LMS: The LMS Basketball Boys are finishing up their season. Their current Records are 6th 12-2, 7th 18-4, and 8th 7-12. They will finish up their regular season Thursday night at Vandalia. We will be hosting the 7th-grade regionals starting on Saturday, January 25th. The first game starts at 9:30 a.m., and Litchfield will take on Vandalia Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

Thank You to the Staff

In other news around the district, Dr. McClain thanked our custodial crew and Mr. Witter for their amazing work during our snow apocalypse as we returned from break. They pull together as a team and help prepare our buildings and grounds for students and staff. That is not an easy task, especially with the sheer amount of snow we received, and their hard work is appreciated. She also thanked our bus drivers for the care and safety they take daily, especially when the roads are not in perfect condition, to get our students to and from school safely. And last, to our entire staff and our families for their patience as we have gone from a snow day, to in-person instruction, to eLearning, to yesterday, when we were out due to extremely cold weather in the morning. It is one of the joys of living in the Midwest…we never know what each day might bring (even when checking the weather every minute). If we have another bout of snow this winter, we will continue to use eLearning days as much as possible.

Dr. McClain thanked Dr. Billiter, who gifted the Litchfield Student Education Foundation $50,000 this year. His support for the district and our staff is evident. His generosity to our community and his commitment to helping support the education of students in Litchfield make such a difference in the services we can provide. He requested that this contribution be directed toward supporting the teachers to help them purchase items or resources they feel would most enhance their classrooms and teaching environments. Each certified teacher in the district will receive $250. Dr. McClain will also work with the administrative team to discuss the remaining funds and how they can best support our teachers and students. On behalf of Purple Panther Nation, we want to express our gratitude to Dr. Billiter.

Also, the Foundation had a new donor this year. Mr. Kent Redfern has donated $2500.

Dr. McClain stated that the support of the community in Litchfield continues to amaze. It is clear that there is a tremendous sense of community and pride here in Purple Panther Nation.

Dr. McClain also recently attended a banquet in honor of the finalists in this year’s VFW Teacher of the Year, Patriot’s Pen Essay, and Voice of Democracy Audio-Essay Contests.

Two of our teachers received the top award and will advance to the state level of judging.

• Middle School: Jennifer Fleming

• High School: Jo Brummet

We had three middle school students advance to the district level for the Patriot’s Pen.

• Cooper Favre, Lydia Gruelle, Maggie Schwab

Three high school students advanced to the district level in the Voice of Democracy contest.

• Jackson Mullins, Conner Favre, Paisli Foss

First Place was awarded to Jackson Mullins. He received $500 and the Gold VOD Medal. In February, Jackson and his parents will be guests of the VFW for a weekend in Springfield, where he will compete for prizes at the state level, ranging from $300 to $2500, and find out if he has advanced to the National Competition.

Dr. McClain thanked Dave Darte for all he does to promote this program and our administrators and teachers for supporting our students in entering these competitions.

Approve Bills and Treasurer’s Report

The bills are tracking as projected. Dr. McClain shared that they will have a preconstruction meeting for the boiler project but anticipates the majority of that will be paid out in the next fiscal year. The district is also working through heating issues at LES in the main office and SCI. This is the first year the SCI systems are being thoroughly tested. Mr. Witter has been working through these issues, but we do anticipate some cost to the district to fix them. We will continue to work with our contractors to find solutions. This month, we also paid out our portion of our SRO. That funding for this year did come from Title IV. I have been informed that we have received our final bill from Poettker for the Colt renovation and PreK projects.

Bills payable for January 2025 total $307,287.

From the Education fund: $187,442; of this total, $9,450 is payable for SCI.

From Operations & Maintenance: $80,369

From Transportation: $24,523

From Capital Projects: $9,888

From Tort: $5,066

The ending balance in all funds on December 31, 2024, is $17,234,345.

The balance in operating funds is $13,993,727.

The balance in Capital Projects is $1,006,179.

Approve the second reading and adoption of Board Policy Press Plus Issue #117

The Board approved the second reading and adoption of these policies. Some reminders on the updated policies are below.

• Schools are expected to have a Cardiac Response Plan in place. Dr. McClain met with the nurses, and they are creating the plan and will have it ready for BOE approval in February.

• One policy has changed the term guidance counselor to school counselor. Board policy is working to make this a consistent change in terminology as policies are reviewed/updated. The same policy also allows schools to pay for trips to visit colleges if their trip is work and school-related. This would not be considered a gift or ethics violation but a work trip.

• The social media policy has been updated to include new platforms that staff should be mindful of using. It is not an all-inclusive list. The updates this year were Threads and Discord.

• Several updates were made to the curriculum policy, with some being expanding the mandated instruction of the dangers of fentanyl to grades 6 (not 9)- 12 and a requirement on instruction in environmental education, including instruction on the current problems and needs in the conservation of natural resources and beginning in the fall of 2026, instruction on climate change and last, a requirement of districts to engage in career exploration and career development followed by college and career pathway endorsements being awarded to students who meet specific requirements. Mrs. Ellis is hard at work on these pathway endorsements.

• Dr. McClain recommends adding the optional paragraph that addresses staff responsibilities in the prevention of and response to bullying. Our staff does an excellent job reporting concerns, but this ensures it is also a part of the BOE policy.

• The student discipline policy has been updated, requiring schools to provide, if available to them, appropriate support services to students who are suspended from school from 5 or more days down to 4 or more days. This is a change in the state code.

• In Policy 8:10, Dr. McClain recommends using the modified subheading for connection with the community that indicates who is the spokesperson for the Board (the President) and the spokesperson for the district (the Superintendent) and then shares the public relations program for the district.

2025-2026 School Calendar

Dr. McClain thanked the LEA Academic Advisory Committee and Mrs. Thompson for working together on the calendar for next year. The calendar was also presented to our Teamster stewards last week for their review. The approved calendar has students starting school on August 13th (this year, it was August 15th) and school ending (if no snow days are used on May 22nd (this year, due to the use of 2 emergency days, it is May 28th). Parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for October 29th and 30th, with the 31st as the earned day off. We will observe all traditionally observed holidays, including three days at Thanksgiving and two weeks at Christmas, and this year, we will have a whole week for Spring Break. Some years, this can more easily happen than others, but we are hopeful this will help some of our families that like to take a full week of vacation and still try to attend school as much as possible.

LINK TO 2025-2026 SCHOOL CALENDAR

Hires:

1. Approve the hire of Patricia Fenton as the Middle School Girls Head Track Coach beginning the 2024-2025 school year.

2. Approve Drew Logan as interim High School Girls Head Basketball coach beginning immediately.

3. Approve Post Prom Sponsors (Libby Jones, Paige Sprankle, Emily (Frerichs) Caldieraro for the 2024-2025 school year.

4. Approve Dana Geggie as a substitute custodian effective immediately.

Volunteers:

1. Approve Jackson Wilson as a volunteer to the Athletic Department beginning the 2024-2025 school year.

2. Approve Johnny Fenton as a volunteer to the Middle School Track program beginning the 2024-2025 school year.

3. Approve Jennifer Fleming as a volunteer to the High School Girls Basketball Team beginning the 2024-2025 school year.

Resignations:

1. Accept the resignation of Evan Malloy as the High School Girls Basketball Head Coach effective December 30, 2024.

FMLA:

1. 2 FMLA requests were approved by the Board.