Unit 40 School Board Hears About New Grading at K, 1 Levels

Effingham Unit 40 school board members heard this week about a new method of grading Kindergarten and first grade students in English-related coursework.

Board members learned that the district will not give a letter grade at those grade levels in Writing, Language Arts, grammar and punctuation. Unit 40 Superintendent Mark Doan said the decision was made since some children are entering school just learning how to correctly hold a pencil.

Rather than a letter grade, the students will receive a "meets", "satisfactory" or "needs improvement" result on their report cards.

Board members this week also approved an agreement with HSHS St. Anthony's Memorial Hospital for hearing and vision screening services. The hospital is providing the services at no cost to the school district, and has entered into similar agreements with all county school districts. Doan said the hospital is looking for more ways to be involved in the community and "can't think of a better way for the hospital to provide more community care."

The Board approved health and and life insurance renewals at a 4% premium increase, and accepted a donation of LEGO robots from Lake Land College. Doan said the robots would be utilized at the eighth grade level in an effort to spark interest in things technological. STEM is the effort, which is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. He said the district will also be purchasing some of the robots.

Unit 40 board members also met in closed session on personnel matters, and on the possible sale or lease of property. We aired the personnel items in Wednesday's news and, as to property, Doan said the district was approached about the property owned west of the high school complex, but didn't feel he could share other information.